The European Investment Bank (EIB) will loan €300 million (US$336.88 million) to Banco Santander (Brasil), the Brazilian branch of Spanish bank Santander, to build 600MWp of small-scale solar in Brazil.
Banco Santander will use the investment to fund the installation of what the EIB calls “a series of small-scale self-consumption” solar projects, which will be installed on homes “and on the premises of small and medium businesses.”
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While Banco Santander did not provide more specific details, the fact that this initiative stems from a cross-continental collaboration is significant. This is the latest investment to come from the EU Commission’s Global Gateway, a project to invest in digital, energy and transport sectors around the world.
The EU has already invested in a number of other solar projects through the gateway, such as an 85MW PV plant in Namibia, and a 19MW PV plant in Niger. The EU Commission plans to invest €300 billion in such projects between 2021 and 2027, and successful investments in the energy sector in particular will help countries within the bloc reach the clean energy targets set out in the Paris Agreement.
“I’m very pleased to announce this project with Banco Santander (Brasil) that will enable private sector investments in renewable energy, reduce carbon emissions and air pollution, and support additional renewable generation capacity in Brazil,” said Ricardo Mourinho Félix, EIB vice-president.
“This operation under EIB Global, the arm of the EIB created in 2022 for activities outside the EU, builds on our global climate engagement and our support for climate action in Brazil over the last three decades.”
The EIB announced the deal during the EU-CELAC Summit of Heads of State and Government and the EU-LAC Business Forum, a pair of events organised by the EU-LAC Foundation, which works to foster a strong strategic partnership between countries in the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Both Brazil and the EU are members of the foundation, as is Chile, which also announced a clean energy collaboration with the EIB at the summit of heads of state. The bank pledged another €300 million to clean energy and infrastructure projects in Chile, and EIB president Werner Hoyer signed an agreement with Chilean energy minister Diego Pardow to “further develop cooperation and financing actions” for clean power projects across Chile, including solar power.
The news follows the EIB’s pledge of an additional €15 billion to its REPowerEU initiative last week, with the bank clearly set on expanding its influence within Europe and beyond.
