Deadline: November 26, 2019
Applications for the GET.invest Finance Catalyst 2019/2020 are now open. The GET.invest Finance Catalyst links renewable energy projects to finance opportunities and vice versa, targeting small- and medium-scale renewable energy (RE) projects, currently in sub-Saharan Africa.
It provides advisory support on project development, project structuring and accessing finance through a team of dedicated experts with extensive experience in renewable energy project development and finance.
Program Details
Many of these projects are challenging for financiers due to the relatively small ticket size, and due to their limited experience with these technologies and new business models. Project developers may lack the experience, networks or time to identify appropriate sources of finance, resulting in high transaction costs and few projects reaching financial close.
The team assists private sector driven RE projects, on-grid as well as off-grid. Whether corporate embedded RE production projects or grid-connected independent power producers (IPPs), mini-grids, solar home system businesses, or (decentralised) energy services companies (ESCOs and DESCOs); projects with strong underlying fundamentals can be supported to access debt, equity or grants, aiming to reach financial close. The support is available to the whole range of technologies within the RE sector. The team has dealt with wind, solar, hybrid, hydro, biomass and biogas projects in a variety of business models.
The Finance Catalyst services are fully complementary to other support and financing instruments in so far as they assist market participants in accessing them, and help these instruments towards stronger traction and results.
Scope of Support
The Finance Catalyst team works with project developers. They connect qualified projects to development finance institutions (DFIs), project preparation support instruments, impact investors and commercial lenders, providing in-kind advisory (but no direct financial support).
The Finance Catalyst delivers through a lean, non-bureaucratic setup, and an à la carte portfolio of services:
- Development support geared at projects at a relatively early stage, but with concrete financing prospects, and providing guidance on the necessary steps of project development in order to ensure completeness and quality.
- Structuring support advising on essential aspects of business case and financing models and supporting developers towards structuring their propositions in a way that corresponds to the needs and expectations of financiers.
- Access to finance support to identify appropriate financing options for projects and to align project documentation with the specific requirements of financing and support instruments.
- Transaction support to provide assistance in the contractual negotiations during project preparation, including (for example) aspects of the financing transaction, term sheets, contractual agreements with specialised advisory, or the fulfilment of conditions precedent.
Eligibility
The GET.invest Finance Catalyst support is available to all project proposals that meet the following minimum criteria:
- Only projects with a cumulative generation capacity between 0.5-50 MW or aggregated investments in the range of € 1-70 million are eligible. This can include distributed generation.
- Projects must be situated in sub-Saharan Africa. Services for the Caribbean and Pacific region are in preparation.
- Projects may comprise electricity generation, electricity distribution (in the case of mini-grids and standalone systems), mechanical energy and industrial / process heat or cooling. Transmission projects or biofuels/transport projects are not eligible.
- Applicants may be private sector developers (local and international), NGOs, universities or research institutions. Preference is given to projects with a significant private sector representation.
- There must be a demonstrable connection with one or more European institutions or companies in the project. This could be a private sector stakeholder, a government institution, a university or a research institution.
- The major part of the project’s scope must be a renewable energy system investment. Hybrid systems with a reasonable share of renewable generation capacity are also eligible.
- Projects must be conceptualised as revenue generating and meet a minimum economic viability and sustainability threshold.
Application
Click here to submit your project
For more information, visit GET.invest Finance Catalyst.
