An in-depth new story from Utility Dive discusses how green banks and green bonds can be complementary forces driving the transition to clean energy, quoting CGC Executive Director Jeff Schub.
“Green bonds are a capital-raising mechanism that a wide range of institutions could use to raise capital,” Coalition for Green Capital Executive Director Jeff Schub told Utility Dive. “A green bank is an institution [capitalized by public funds] that invests capital in clean energy projects. [They] are complementary, capital raising and capital deploying.”
Together, they can attract hundreds of billions in institutional and financial market money to fund utility investments in large-scale renewables and public sector investments in local distributed generation. They can also work together to support utility transitions away from high-cost legacy generation to lower-cost “green” generation, stakeholders told Utility Dive.
The piece draws on the example set by established green banks, and explores how a National Climate Bank could support these institutions while also investing directly in clean energy projects. By leveraging private investment and recycling capital, a National Climate Bank could turn billions of dollars in federal funds into trillions invested in clean energy projects.
For more, see the full story by Herman Trabish at Utility Dive.