Investments 2023

2023 marked the first full year of operations for the Climate Investment Fund. During the year, four new investments were made. In addition, two follow-on investments supporting the growth of existing Climate Investment Fund portfolio companies were also made. In total, new commitments of NOK 1.6 billion were made, taking the total Climate Investment Fund portfolio to NOK 3.8 billion. The investments made in 2023 are expected to contribute to avoid 8.5 million tons of CO2e emissions when the projects are operational.

Highlights of 2023

Pele Green Energy

Pele Green Energy is a South African owned Independent Power Producer that develops, owns, constructs and operates renewable energy power projects, including both small scale embedded generation and utility scale power plants. Pele is partnering with international utilities like Engie, Enel and EDF. Norfund has committed ZAR 658 million as part of a consortium together with Nedbank and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) of South Africa. The funding is part of a ZAR 2.5 billion loan with a preference share clause. The funding will enable Pele to move forward and construct a pipeline of more than 1 GW of awarded solar and wind projects in South Africa together with partners. The projects are a mix of projects delivering power to the national grid and projects delivering directly to industrial customers.  

Gadag

Norfund and KLP have extended their co-operation Renew, India’s largest independent renewable energy company, to develop transmission infrastructure that connects areas of renewable resources to the main grid. The Gadag project is 144 kV of high voltage transmission lines that will provide enough capacity to evacuate 2,5 GW of renewables to the grid, located in Karnataka, India. 

Follow-up investment in SAEL

After the initial 60 million USD equity investment in 2022, a follow-up investment of 50 million USD was done in 2023. SAEL has developed a business model where crop residues are used as fuel in waste-to-energy projects. Normally farmers in India burn crop stubble in their fields to remove paddy residue, resulting in severe air pollution in the region. SAEL is an emerging renewable company in India with presence across solar and agri waste to energy projects. SAEL is India’s largest agri waste to energy producer. SAEL currently has more than 20 projects both operating and under construction in solar and agri waste to energy space.