The UK Government plans to launch a £1,000 billion ($1.44 Trillion) Green Investment Bank today. The Queen’s Speech, setting out the legislation for the next parliament, will include the Green Bank, which will be massively upgraded from the puny £2bn affair that the previous Labour government had been planning. It will be part of the Energy Security and Green Economy Bill.
There is expected to be a government-backed Green bond issuance to kick-start the anticipated programmes, focusing on investments with stable revenue schemes, such as the Feed-in tarrif for home-produced electricity.
Several senior Executives are vying to run the new bank, which will have a capitalisation of up to £20 billion, injected by the government at a rate of £2 billion per year. It will then leverage that capital to gain up to fifty times that funding from the private sector. The European Investment Bank operates on the same principle
E3G, the organisation which has been campaigning for the bank, says the government needs to set out its serious intent today and the previous Labour administration had aimed to invest only £1 billion. The UK has committed itself to having a near zero carbon economy by 2050, says E3G. Delivering this low carbon transition will require a total investment of at least £750 billion over the next two to three decades.
The aim is for the Green Investment Bank to provide a mix of government and private-sector cash to invest in promising new technologies, Chancellor George Osborne has said during the election. The fund will focus first on investing in green transport and sustainable energy, in particular offshore wind power
Energy efficiency is a further investment opportunity,. estimated to be worth £350bn in the UK, £111bn of which needs to be invested in homes ─ is a clear green bond opportunity.
Osborne set out the plan as part of a broader economic policy – uniting the previous government’s current disparate plans to fund green technologies which had failed to help the U.K. capture a significant share of the global green-technology market. Osborne said the U.K.’s environmental industry currently exports some £10 billion a year, compared with some £50 billion in Germany.
The Labour launch of the mini-version of the bank announced earlier this year, came after after the previous administration lifted the idea from a Conservative policy initiative.
The European Future Energy Forum looks set to be the first showcase of the UK Government post-election of their renewable energy plans and policy. Held 19-21 October at ExCeL, London in association with the UKTI, the forum will be the UK’s largest gathering of international renewable energy manufacturers, investors and service providers. It will also be an opportunity for energy ministers and heads of state from around the world to share a platform with the new UK government to debate policy, financing and infrastructure required to ensure energy security and sustainability in the Future of Energy within Europe.
The Labour launch of the mini-version of the bank announced earlier this year, came after after the previous administration lifted the idea from a Conservative policy initiative.
