Geothermal – capturing the steam with the World Bank
World Bank building in Washington, DC (source: flickr/ brunosan, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
30 Sep 2015
In a recent World Bank blog post, the bank highlights the role geothermal can play and what the World Bank and in particularly the Climate Investment Fund (CIF) is doing to help geothermal development.
In a recent blog post by the World Bank, the bank provides a take on its view on geothermal energy.
“Geothermal power also holds tremendous promise as one of the most plentiful and cheapest renewable energy
options available. Its expansion is limited, however, by the time and cost-intensive exploration phase which may reveal insufficient resources to generate power. Most private investors are not willing to take on these risks.
To help break down these barriers and de-risk geothermal development, the CIF is allocating $810 million for geothermal investments in 15 countries.
?Over $10 billion in co-financing is expected for a dynamic project pipeline with the potential to lead to the development of 3.5 GW of geothermal capacity, more than one-quarter of current global installed capacity of 13 GW.
CIF funding is helping to enlarge markets in countries like Indonesia, Kenya, and Mexico and is supporting some of the first large-scale geothermal projects in Armenia, Chile, Dominica, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. In fact, the CIF is the leading source of international development finance for early-stage geothermal project exploration and development.
To date, the CIF has provided $400 million, or more than half of total public finance currently flowing to these critical project phases.
With these and other investments in renewable energy—from solar photovoltaics to biomass to wind to small-scale hydropower— the CIF is demonstrating the power of well-placed concessional financing to stimulate climate action. As climate negotiations at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Paris, France rapidly approach, we hope the lessons and leadership of the CIF can help show the way to a greener future.”
In a presentation by Pierre Audinet of the ESMAP program there were further details shared on the different programs, details of which can be found in this article by Renewable Energy World.
Source: Blogs/ World Bank
