French energy major Engie has secured a €500 million (US$548 million) loan from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to expand its operations in “emerging markets” and “decarbonise its activities”.
The IFC – a member of the World Bank Group – co-financed the loan with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and Société de Promotion et de Participation pour la Coopération Economique (Proparco) as well as mobilising capital from seven private credit insurers.
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Engie said the loan would support its plan to phase out coal from its portfolio by 2025 in continental Europe and 2027 worldwide, as well as the development of 1.7GW of new renewable energy capacity by 2027. This is part of the company’s stated aim to have a 50GW renewable energy portfolio by 2025 and 80GW by 2030.
Adrien Koenig, group head of structured finance at Engie said: “To accelerate the energy transition, considerable resources and efforts are needed from many stakeholders.”
He added that the loan “includes climate-related targets for scope 3 emissions and a health and safety performance indicator that covers Engie employees and subcontractors on all sites.”
In its financial results for the first half of 2024, Engie said it added over 1GW of new capacity since the start of the year with 6.9GW under construction. It said it had earnings before interest and taxes of €5.6 billion, down 16.3% year-on-year.
In February this year, the company secured a US$1 billion tax equity investment from a coalition of US and French banks to support the development of a 1GW solar PV portfolio in the US.
