The European Investment Bank (EIB) has made its largest equity investment in clean energy this year, with a €50 million (US$68.5 million) investment into the second Glennmont Fund.
The €50 million investment will go directly to Glennmont Partner’s second clean energy infrastructure fund, a third of which is expected to go towards PV projects in Europe.
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Glennmont Partners is a European clean energy investment fund manager; it raised €200 million towards the second clean energy fund in August. The fund already has commitments of €250 million (US$342.9 million) from new and previous investors and has invested in 165MW of solar projects since its founding at the beginning of 2013. Glennmont was founded as a spin off from BNP Paribas Clean Energy Partners, and focuses on renewable energy projects in the UK and Europe.
Talking to PV Tech, Joost Bergsma, CEO of Glennmont, said the second clean energy fund has a target of €450 million and aims to invest a third of this in PV solar projects in Europe.
The EIB is responsible for funding renewable energy projects in line with the European Union target of reaching 20% renewable energy by 2020.
The EIB leant €3.3 billion (US$4.5 billion) in 2012 towards EU renewable energy policy, and announced in August it is to invest €167 million (US$230 million) in renewable energy projects in Central America.
Applications for EIB funding include Santander’s UK Framework Loan for solar photovoltaic projects, a 121MW solar thermal project in the Negev Desert in Israel, a 30MW in West Africa and a 200MW CSP parabolic trough project in Morocco.
Bergsma said the investment “further demonstrates that our independent, specialist approach is attractive to top-level investors”. “We share a common goal with the EIB to promote sustainable and secure sources of energy for the UK while also delivering consistent yield and long-term capital appreciation for investors,” he said.
Jonathan Taylor, European Investment Bank vice president, said Glennmont has “an established track record and proven readiness to support renewable energy projects across Europe. The European Investment Bank is pleased to back projects that tackle a changing climate.”