BY Jeff St. John, — 02/3/2021
Green Tech Media released an article regarding the new push to support hard-to-commercialize clean energy and carbon-cutting investments with federal funding. Democrats in Congress reintroduced the Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator Act. The bill would direct $100 billion to the Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator, a nonprofit entity tasked with making loans and investments into sectors of the economy that need to grow rapidly.
The bill’s proponents say that $100 billion could help leverage up to $500 billion more in private-sector lending and investment and create up to 4 million jobs over the next four years by targeting business sectors with carbon-reduction capacity but underdeveloped access to capital and credit, or gaps between proven technologies and the commercial structures to bring them to market.
Projects authorized for funding under the bill include renewable power, building efficiency, grid infrastructure, industrial decarbonization, clean transportation, reforestation, and climate-resilient infrastructure.
The article can be found here.
Here is an excerpt that features SELF:
Investing in disadvantaged communities, a central facet of the Biden-Harris climate change agenda is another area where green banks can break down barriers. Duanne Andrade, CFO of Florida’s green bank, the Solar and Energy Loan Fund, noted that about $17 million of the $25 million it has raised so far has gone to small loans with an average size of $10,000, with 74 percent of that total directed to low- and moderate-income borrowers.
“It’s not all about the numbers; it’s about the social impact, the quality of life impact,” Andrade said in an interview. At the same time, default rates on those unsecured loans stand at 2 percent, lower than industrywide averages over the past year, she added.
The article can be found here.