World Bank approves $480m for Argentina’s renewable energy sector

World Bank has approved a $480m guarantee to promote private investment in the Argentinean renewable energy sector.

The funding has been approved by the financial institution to achieve the target of 20% of energy consumption originating from renewable energy in Argentina by 2025.

The transaction uses a 20-year World Bank guarantee to attract investments in the private-sector.

The development of renewable sources is reported to be essential in Argentina in order to diversify the power grid and contributing to climate change mitigation.

Argentina Minister of Energy and Mines Juan José Aranguren said: “The support of the World Bank is facilitating progress in our country to achieve in a few months what was not done for a decade in renewable energy, contributing to our objective of guaranteeing our energy security and reducing climate change impacts”

The funding offered by the World Bank guarantee will used for supporting the Development of Renewable Energy (FODER, in Spanish), which provides financial assistance to the projects under the RenovAr Programme of the country’s Ministry of Energy and Mining.

The new initiative is expected to stimulate power generation from wind, solar, biomass, and small-scale hydro projects to achieve the 20% renewable energy target by 2025.

World Bank Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay director Jesko Hentschel said: “This project promotes private investment in renewable energy sources to help satisfy the growing energy demand in the country with a clean energy source that strengthens sustainable development.”

The RenovAr Programme was implemented last year through two tender rounds (known as Round 1 and Round 1.5) to award 59 projects, which are expected to generate 2423MW and will be implemented throughout the country.