Climate Fund Managers today announced the final close of the Climate Investor One Stichting Development Fund and Coöperatief Construction Equity Fund U.A. at a combined USD 850 million. The fund focuses on financing for renewable energy in emerging markets and estimates it will support renewable energy delivery to 13 million people. The fund model was developed within the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance in 2014-2015 and was one of the first four Lab instruments to receive development support and endorsement from the Lab. From the announcement:

Climate Investor One, with an emerging markets renewable energy mandate, is the inaugural facility managed by CFM and the first of an intended series of ‘blended finance’ investment vehicles focused on providing capital to climate mitigation and adaptation sectors in developing countries.

After a successful two-year fundraising period and four previous closes, Climate Investor One has scaled beyond its original target of USD 530 million, following a notable investment by the Green Climate Fund (GCF). As a catalytic driver of scale to Climate Investor One, GCF has unlocked further funding opportunities for new and existing commercial and institutional investors. The GCF investment in Climate Investor One will be routed via the Dutch Development Bank, FMO, in the capacity as GCF Accredited Entity (AE).

Climate Investor One will utilise a whole-of-life financing approach to deliver renewable energy infrastructure projects across Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Latin America. The facility will generate its own proprietary pipeline through use of the Stichting Development Fund, a development and technical assistance vehicle, before offering projects to the Coöperatief Construction Equity Fund for construction financing through an all-equity approach. CFM will later raise a Coöperatief Refinancing Fund to provide post-construction operational debt to projects. The whole-of-life financing approach is intended to save both the time and cost of implementing renewable energy projects and improving the quality of delivery through CFM’s in-house engineering, financial, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) centres of excellence.

Upon full deployment of capital, Climate Investor One will deliver an estimated 1,700MW of additional capacity, generating approximately 5,100GWh of electricity per annum, serve in the region of 13 million people, and avoid harmful greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by ca. 1.9 million tCO2 per annum.

Climate Investor One is already invested in the development of a number of projects, with two assets having received construction financing: Cleantech Solar, currently a 116MW pan-Asia Corporate and Industrial (C&I) rooftop solar platform, and Africa Hydro Holdings (AHH), a 42MW run-of-river hydro platform in Uganda.