The tenth congress “Latam Renewables” which took place this Wednesday at the premises of Technological Laboratory of Uruguay (LATU) It allowed us to present some existing tools to obtain international funds for initiatives that seek to stimulate the use of renewable energy in the country.
One of them is REIF Uruguaya renewable energy innovation fund which works as a “dynamizer” of investments for ventures that use low-carbon technologies for industry, transportation, and the commercial and residential sectors. The program includes a escrow to provide loans to companies, technical assistance to complement the loans, regulatory strengthening and capacity building, and the development of knowledge and technology transfer.
The program is funded by a fund of USA and has the participation of Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining (MIEM)of the Ministry of Environmentof the Office of Planning and Budget (OPP) and the company UTE, as well as the contribution to the management of private banking.
“In 2023, we have made strategic alliances and cooperation with practically all local banks. The program does not make a financial analysis of the projects. We focus on the environmental, social and governance challenges of impact, and how we can collaborate to catalyze that project,” he explained Antonio Martinez, REIF Operations Manager.
Regarding the way we work, he explained that “they can come directly to us, and in general what we do is, first we do a pre-screening, to see if the project is within the verticals that REIF can finance. It is a very agile process, where we issue a pre-approval note for the project based on a pre-analysis, from the point of view of the impact, guarantee and financial. That is a letter of introduction with which the projects can go to the banks they want and say we have the support of REIF and they want to finance us up to 30%, or up to a million dollars, or the amount that we eventually get with them,” exemplified Martinez, who also announced that they are already working on a project whose total investment is around 40 million dollars.
Other financing alternatives for sustainable projects
For its part, Luciana Lopez Acostacoordinator of environmental projects of the National Development Corporation (NDC) explained that one international accreditation The grant obtained by the organization allows them to apply for grant funds for projects of up to a total of 50 million dollars that have a medium-low environmental and social risk.
“It is the largest global fund for climate change, and is geared towards supporting projects in developing countries aimed at mitigating and adapting to climate change. It currently has a portfolio of 13 billion dollars in projects, so we are talking about a significant innovation fund,” explained the CND official.
In this regard, López defined the two main characteristics of this fund: “One is that there is no great limit in terms of the world of financing, which allows financing projects that would otherwise have no chance. Another is that it is a fund that promotes innovation, both new technologies and the fact of changing and starting new ways of doing things. We also see it as a value and there are also tools to try to give that value to the projects.”
He added that the organization is working on three main lines. “One is to give them structuring services based on the knowledge they already have. Then we understand that we can also accompany the project throughout the structuring and financing process complete. Finally we think that we can also have a place in supporting, in climb a project that is already being implemented,” said the CND project coordinator.
Finally, Juan Ignacio Cabreradirector of Inxto Partners, firm specialized in providing corporate finance solutions in Latin America Through services for the purchase and sale of companies, business development, financial structuring and international tenders, among other points; he valued the steps taken by several Uruguayan companies to become environmentally sustainable, which allows them, among other things, to access new financing possibilities.
“The global commitment to achieve this is an international reality. decarbonization of the economies and achieve this decarbonization through the entry of innovators. The reality is that it was created as a great marathon to achieve this goal, but there are still many uncertainties about how to achieve it. And in this uncertainty, of course, the countries that manage to clear up doubts and generate the appropriate incentives for development will be the first to manage to capture this investment,” Cabrera analyzed.
“We noticed that China continues to run the pace of that marathon but a little slower, and we understand that this slowdown comes from the change of focus that there is in Europe, With all the political and social conflict and also the change of focus in USA, where there is much interest in the hydrogen, but everything is very locally focused,” added the businessman.
Source: Ambito
