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Press Release
Full Advantage has always put innovation and creative solutions at the core of its activities. Recently, Full Advantage has trail-blazed new frontiers to help expand the reach of traditional financing institutions to areas they have not been familiar with. Working with the Clean Energy Development Bank Limited (CEDB) in Nepal and the Eastern Bank Limited (EBL) in Bangladesh, Full Advantage helped to develop a Sustainable Energy Financing (SEF) Product to fund renewable energy and energy efficiency investments in Nepal and Bangladesh, and help them grow their portfolio of clean energy projects. Supported by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group, the work of Full Advantage with CEDB and EBL has seen the two banks launch their products in May 2012 and June 2012, respectively (see pictures). Dubbed as “CEDB SEF Product” and “EBL Green Credit”, the products will provide financing support in the form of innovative financing schemes and credit enhancement mechanisms, while taking a proactive, involved and dynamic approach in supporting clients in different aspects and stages of project development, financing and implementation (see Figure 1).
Launching of the CEDB SEF Product in Nepal. Full Advantage is represented by Alan Dale Gonzales, Executive Director (3rd from left)
and Dr. Brahmanand Mohanty, Energy and Resource Efficiency Specialist (4th from right).
Bangladesh and Nepal belong to the least developed countries category and their industries and businesses face real and daunting challenges, such as:
• Up to 16 hours of electricity outages and load shedding;
• Irregular or limited supply of fossil fuel;
• Heavy dependence on oil products that are imported;
• High costs involved in running energy equipment due to rising cost of fossil fuel;
• Widening gap between demand and supply.
These financing schemes are expected to unlock the door to the market transformation of the sustainable energy space in the two countries. Financing investments in demand-side modern and efficient technologies and supply-side investments in indigenous clean and renewable energies will serve as the key to the country’s energy sustainability. The benefits that facilities could realize by financing their sustainable energy projects and activities through the SEF Product include:
• Financial: reduced operating costs; reduced energy bills; improved cash flow and higher margins; loan repayment could be
solely based on energy bill savings
• Operational: improved management of facilities; increased equipment reliability and availability; improved productivity and product
quality
• Environmental: lower greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions; better waste management
Figure 1: The six strands of support from SEF
Launching of EBL Green Credit in Bangladesh that Full Advantage has helped to design and develop.
