The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has invested €100 million (US$109.3 million) in SolarWind III, a fund raised by Finnish fund manager Taaleri Energia that aims to build 1.9GW of renewable capacity across Europe and the US.
The fund will be used to construct solar, wind and battery storage capacity in five markets – the Nordics and Baltics, Poland, south-east Europe, Spain and Texas – and follows the EBRD’s support of the fund’s predecessor, the SolarWind II fund. This fund helped build 850MW of new renewable capacity across these five markets, and the EBRD expects its contribution to the third generation of the fund to support the construction of 800MW of new capacity, close to half of the fund’s total capacity installations.
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“It is our pleasure to continue to partner with Taaleri Energia to scale up renewables and accelerate the energy transition in the EBRD’s economies,” said Anne Fossemalle, EBRD director of equity funds. “This investment will bolster power generation and diversify funding sources for renewable energy assets.”
The EBRD has invested in a number of renewable projects in general, and solar projects in particular, with an emphasis on investments in Central Asia in recent months. The group is currently investigating the viability of a €128.1 million (US$140 million) investment into a 200MW solar project in Uzbekistan, alongside a 500MWh battery storage project, and plans to commit €41.2 million (US$45 million) to support the construction of a 200MW solar project in Armenia.
While the group is historically based in Europe, with the European Union and European Investment Bank among its founding members and financiers, it has since expanded its reach to cover more of the globe. Its investments in Uzbekistan are the latest in the country’s growing solar sector, following the China Energy Engineering Corporation’s commissioning of part of a solar project, and since 2016, the bank has added China and India to its members.
“The EBRD is an anchor investor in both the Taaleri SolarWind II and Taaleri SolarWind III funds,” said Kai Rintala, Taaleria Energia managing director. “These funds invest approximately 50% of their capital in the Baltic states, Poland and south-eastern Europe.”