The FiRe panel of energy and finance experts has pre-selected eight new ideas with significant potential to accelerate investment in clean energy and climate finance worldwide.

The panel convened on 11 March to choose eight finalists from the top 24 proposals that had already passed the initial screening. The finalists are proposing cutting-edge financial tools and approaches for tackling barriers to the financing of clean energy and climate projects. The shortlist includes opportunities in energy efficiency, distributed systems, risk management and securitisation (see the complete list below).

The group of eight finalists will present at the BNEF Summit, to be held on 13-15 April in New York, where the audience will choose three to four winners for the FiRe initiative to support.

Michael Liebreich, founder and chairman of Finance for Resilience, said, “This was a very strong year for submissions. In year two of FiRe, the number and quality has improved, and we had a fantastic day reviewing them with our selection panel. Among the finalists are some great ideas for accelerating the financing of projects and also climate-related investment in cities.”

Lela Jgerenaia, project leader for Finance for Resilience, added, “Our new eight finalists identified key challenges in the global energy market and proposed novel but executable ideas that will provide value to investors and help project developers get access to financing.”

FiRe’s scope was expanded this year to cover specific interventions related to energy efficiency, cities & municipalities and distributed energy. Below are the eight finalists for 2015:

INTERVENTION SHORT-LIST

Workstream 1: distributed solutions
Create new standards to encourage connectable, scalable, DC microgrids, and therefore the spread of electrical goods, electronically controlled devices, and communications access for less developed countries
Expand the deployment of distributed solar technology in developing countries through the introduction of solar lease financing
Open access to $10bn in financing for cost-effective, distributed energy resources to customers of utilities that implement a voluntary tariff for energy efficiency and renewable energy
Expand renewable energy to 1.5m Southern European farms, leveraging standard contracts, best practices, and robust datasets, and pooling cash flows into liquid debt securities

Workstream 2: cities/municipalities
Establish a public-private partnership to implement energy-efficient, low-carbon municipal infrastructure using a ‘performance contracting’ model
Develop and apply a framework that monetises future avoided losses from extreme weather events, in order to help implement climate adaptation infrastructure

Workstream 3: architecture for finance
Grow the market for “green” bonds by providing a consistent measure of avoided carbon emissions per dollar of investment
Lower transactional soft costs for commercial clean energy projects and promote clean energy asset securitisation by scoring risks in a standardised way
For more details on the interventions download our ‘FiRe Book 2015’ which includes the top 24 proposals received in 2015 or email Lela Jgerenaia at ljgerenaia@bloomberg.net