The governing board of the Private Finance Advisory Network (PFAN), a multilateral public-private partnership that connects clean energy businesses with private financing, announced today that it has entered negotiations with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) for the two organizations to jointly host the next generation of PFAN in Vienna.
The new PFAN, scheduled to launch in mid-2016, represents a major effort by the three organizations to accelerate the flow of private investment into clean energy sectors, in developing countries, with focus on small and medium-sized enterprises.
PFAN, initiated and to this point managed by the Climate Technology Initiative (CTI) [1], works by identifying promising clean energy projects at early stage; providing mentoring for the development of a business plan, investment pitch, and growth strategy; and matchmaking projects with private investors.
PFAN’s advantage is its network of investors, financiers, and project developers with in-depth knowledge of local markets and technologies in over 40 countries across Africa; Latin America and the Caribbean; Southeast, East, and Central Asia; and the Commonwealth of Independent States. PFAN serves a unique role in the climate finance space by originating bankable projects for investment by the private sector, multilateral development banks and international climate funds.
To date, PFAN has successfully raised over USD 800 million in investment for around 70 projects in developing countries. Combined, these projects have the potential to mitigate over 2.5 million tons of CO2 per year and provide over 590 MW of clean energy generation capacity. PFAN presides over a development pipeline of around 300 clean energy projects focusing on biogas, biomass, waste to energy, clean transport, wind, solar, small hydro and energy efficiency sectors[2].
“The CTI Executive Committee wanted to expand this important instrument,” explains Michael Rantil, Senior Adviser at the Swedish Energy Agency, PFAN Manager and retiring Chair of the Executive Committee. “It has been a great success story, and we are now eager to see it grow and expand its impact worldwide.”
“This undertaking will bring together three prominent players in the global sustainable development effort, leveraging each other’s strengths to promote investment in clean energy technologies and systems,” said Pradeep Monga, Director of the Energy Branch at UNIDO.
UNIDO is the United Nations’ specialized agency for promoting inclusive and sustainable industrial development; REEEP is a leading agent for rapid, impact-oriented clean energy market action at small and medium-sized enterprise level.
“Having worked closely with PFAN over the past few years, we expect to hit the ground running,” said Martin Hiller, REEEP Director General, referring to the “Phased Financing” project incubation program offered by the two organisations. “It is truly exhilarating to see this work significantly strengthened through the cooperation of UNIDO,” he added.
“We look forward to taking PFAN to the next level in 2016,” said PFAN Global Coordinator Peter Storey. “We see this partnership as having the potential to be really game-changing in how the private sector can contribute not only to climate change solutions, but also poverty alleviation and sustainable development.”
Through the new hosting arrangement, PFAN is expecting to diversify its services and broaden its implementation capacity, as well as attract new strategic partners and network members with a track record of business development and clean energy investment in developing countries to provide coaching services.
Negotiations between the partners are expected to be concluded by April 2016, with first projects of the new PFAN beginning thereafter. Existing PFAN operations will be unaffected by this change and PFAN services will continue to be provided as normal through the transition to the new hosting and governance structure under UNIDO and REEEP.
More information on PFAN is available at http://cti-pfan.net
For more information, please contact:
UNIDO
Patrick Nussbaumer
Email: P.NUSSBAUMER@unido.org
REEEP
John Tkacik
Email: john.tkacik@reeep.org
[1] CTI is one of the International Energy Agency’s Technology Collaboration Programmes (IEA TCP). [2] To read more about PFAN success stories in Asia and Africa please visit http://cti-pfan.net/resource-document/cti-pfan-asia-success-stories, and http://cti-pfan.net/resource-document/cti-pfan-africa-success-stories
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