Climate Investor One (CIO)

Climate Investor One focuses on financing projects in low and lower middle income countries in the wind, solar, and hydro sectors with an average size of 25-75 MW or USD 80-100m in total investment cost. Climate Investor One consists of three stages: A Development Fund funded by non-repayable donor contributions would finance up to 50% of development costs for projects by private sector developers. Its specific aim would be to improve projects’ bankability from an early stage, which would include activities that projects often struggle to complete for lack of finance, such as help securing land titles and permits, concluding a power purchase agreement, conducting an environmental and social impact assessment, and reaching financial close by securing 100% of investment costs. The donor capital used to fund this stage would be converted to equity stakes for successful projects that would in turn be bought out by the Construction Finance Facility at commercial rates. In this way, the Development Facility would be an evergreen facility, recycling the returns made from the construction finance facility buy-outs to fund the development of subsequent new projects. A Construction Fund would provide up to 75% of investment costs on commercial terms to projects. It would be funded by three different tiers representing different risk/return positions: A $100m Tier 1 donor tranche to cover potential losses; a $200m Tier 2 subordinate tranche taken up by DFIs and potentially PE/commercial