Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund (GEEREF) - Asia, Africa and Latin America

The Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund (GEEREF) is an emerging market fund-of-funds. GEEREF invests in funds in Asia, Africa and Latin America that target infrastructure projects and companies in the energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors. It seeks to accelerate private investment into its target markets by providing a superior risk-adjusted return, drawing upon the resources of European Investment Bank and European Investment Fund in private equity and energy infrastructure investment globally. Climate finance is unlocked through GEEREF’s structure.

Fast facts:

So far, GEEREF has committed €74 million to seven private equity funds focused on providing construction equity to small and medium sized infrastructure projects in developing countries;
To date, these funds raised a total of €400 million of financing. From this, the funds so far have committed €150 million to projects and invested €110 million in them, currently valued at €151 million;
GEEREF's portfolio currently comprises 474MW in operation and a further 423MW of assets in construction or pre-construction, which have generated 165,000MWh of clean electricity in 2014 and reduced emissions by an estimated 83,000 tonnes.

The problem

Over the next 50 years, the majority of carbon emissions will come from emerging markets. Trillions of dollars of clean energy capacity are needed to mitigate this. Clean electrification is a major enabler of sustainable development in frontier markets.

The solution

GEEREF was created and structured to leverage public sector funding to mobilize private sector capital to build clean energy capacity. The beneficiary clean energy projects are typically sub-10MW, requiring €5 million to €10 million. These projects struggle to attract capital from global institutional investors who lack structured routes to finance them. GEEREF is therefore designed to provide investors with this access through a highly diversified programme.

Helping the planet

GEEREF will help reduce carbon emissions from emerging markets with climate finance.

Helping people

By the time GEEREF is fully invested, EIB analysis indicates some €10 billion of total capital will have been mobilized in some of the poorest countries in the world (DAC list), implying new build clean energy capacity of around 5,000 MW. This would be sufficient to provide electricity for some 18 million households in Africa, for example.

Scaling Up

By the time GEEREF is fully invested, EIB analysis indicates some €10 billion of total capital will have been mobilized, implying new build clean energy capacity of around 5,000 MW. These assets would generate a total output of 13TWh per annum, nearly 8% of Africa’s current residential consumption (or 18m households, assuming 0.75MWh per household per annum). This level of output would imply some 6.5 million tonnes of C02 averted per annum.