Regional Liquidity Support Facility (RLSF) – Scaling Solar Sambia – International Climate Initiative (ICI)

• Regional Liquidity Support Facility (RLSF)

The Regional Liquidity Support Facility is a liquidity facility governed by the African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI) and supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) with approximately 33 million Euro. Payment obligations of electricity utilities subject to PPA contracts are being hedged for a duration by up to six months.

For a successful application the following criteria must be fulfilled:

• Location of the project within the ATI member countries or other third party countries if ATI
• can conclude agreements with the government accordingly
• Project size up to 50 MW (in exceptional cases up to 100 MW)
• Supported technologies: PV, Hydropower, Onshore Wind, Geothermal plants, Biomass or CHP
• Support of the project by the government and the (usually state-owned) electricity purchaser

The RLSF is comprised of two components:

• Cash funds being disbursed directly to IPPs once the guarantee is being drawn.  For this purpose, the BMZ has allocated approximately 31 million Euro of funding.
• An additional guarantee in the amount of the cash funds provided by the ATI in the case of cash funds running out

• Scaling Solar Sambia – Second project ready for implementation

The second PV project as part of the Scaling Solar Programme has secured financing. The financial package consists of:

• A Loan amounting to 11.75 million USD of the European Investment Bank (EIB)
• Senior Loan  amounting to 10 million USD of the International Financing Corporation (IFC) – Part of the World Bank Group
• Concessional loan amounting to 12 million USD provided by the IFC-Canada Climate Change Program

The project with a performance of approximately 34 kWp realized by Enel has achieved a FiT of 7,5 USDcent/kWh in the first Scaling Solar tender round.

• International Climate Initiative (IKI) – country-specific selection procedure opened

The support programme of the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) draw a line between thematic and country specific selection programmes. The current procedure as part of the international climate protection initiative includes country-specific projects only and is targeting applications from the following countries:

• Columbia
• Mexico
• Philippines

In the case of Mexico and the Philippines, funding is foreseen to be granted for one bilateral project for each country with a volume between 25-30 and 30-35 million Euro respectively. In Columbia, two bilateral projects are supposed to be funded with a volume between 15 and 20 million Euro each. The projects have to be executed with more than two organizations with a strong share of national partners that need to receive a minimum of 50 percent of the programme’s resources. The funding is being distributed as grants, a maximum quota has not been set. However, an appropriate own share of the applicants has to be proved. Additionally, if possible other support programmes should be acquired as well.

The proposed projects may include technical consulting services and/or investments following and supporting the target of fulfilling the NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions) and NBSAP (National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans) with due regard to the respective SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals).

The application procedure is following a two-step process. Project outlines can be submitted on the IKI-Online platform until September 27th, 2018. Positively evaluated projects will be admitted to the second step for which the submission of the applications is required.

The range of admissible applicants has been determined widely and includes applicants on a national and international scale:

• Enterprises
• Universities and research facilities and institutions headed in partnering countries (including accredited national implementation organizations at international and national organizations)
• International and multilateral organizations and facilities such as development banks, organizations and programmes of the United Nations
• German Federal implementation organizations
• Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s)