World Bank renewables support growing:  It's from a very small base.  There's lots to un-spin in the press release.  Here we go.  "The World Bank Group committed US$212 million to new renewable energy projects this year .. [WBG] funded $87 million in energy efficiency and another $449 million for large hydro (over 10 MW capacity) in the most recent fiscal year, for a combined total of $748 million compared with $339 million in the previous year.  Total commitments to the three sectors since 1990 exceed $9 billion."  So the annual average for 15 years was $9b/15=$600m, and the last 2 years together were average.

"Total energy sector commitments of $2.8 billion [were] made this year. .. WBG committed to increase its support for new renewables and energy efficiency by an average of 20% per year from 2005 to 2009. That commitment was made in Bonn, Germany in June 2004"  At at 20% growth rate, it won't even equal the $2.5b of conventional and large hydro for 12 years!  Pretty lame.

By region this year: East Asia & Pacific $129 m; Africa $46m; South Asia $16m; Latin America & Caribbean $15 m; Europe & Central Asia received $6m; Middle East & North Africa $1 m.  So, only nominal support outside Asia and Africa. 

"The lowest level of funding for new renewables was in 1991, when $2 million was supported, while the high was in 2000 at $444 million. The highest level for energy efficiency was $380 million in 1996, while hydro received $938 million in 1993. ..

The report includes the support provided by the six regional energy units of the WBG, International Finance Corporation, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, Carbon Finance operations, Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme, and the Asia Alternative & Sustainable Energy Program. It notes that each dollar of WBG financing leveraged $5 from private investors, governments and others. ..

Forty renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in 28 countries were supported, with the smallest being the Yemen Rural Electrification & Renewable Energy Development Project, and the highest being$137 million for the first phase of the Renewable Energy Scale-up Program in support of China’s commitment to increase its share of renewables from 7% of generation capacity to 15% by 2020."

8:40:28 AM