Standard Bank finances renewable energy projects

Standard Bank has played an instrumental role in the funding of more than 940MW of renewable energy as part of Eskom’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPP). Three of these projects were connected to the Eskom grid in 2013, bringing 121.5MW of renewable energy production to the national grid. This is enough to power over 65,000 homes.

“The drive towards renewable energy is developing an entirely new energy market in South Africa, which requires both specialist skills as well as innovative funding models,” said Rentia van Tonder, head of Renewables for Standard Bank. “Given that these projects are greenfield investments for a newly-created consortium with own equity, we opted for a project finance model with a fairly long repayment term as the facility is effectively unsecured backed by a 20 year PPA supported by the SA government.”

The Standard Bank-funded wind farm project in the Eastern Cape has become the first of Eskom’s REIPPP initiatives to reach financial close in late 2012 and begin successfully delivering power to the national grid in 2013.

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