The role of public investment & development banks in enabling or constraining new power generation technologies

In order to reduce CO2 emissions to a level in line with the Paris agreement, power systems have to be transformed globally, including in developing countries. In these countries, multilateral development banks (MDBs) can play an instrumental role. Preliminary results of a mixed-method study on the role of these banks in disseminating low-carbon technologies are presented, including a newly compiled database of MDB projects 2005-2015, as well as findings from semi-structured interviews with 12 development bank officials. Overall, we find that most MDB created a significant renewables portfolio “on top” of their conventional business, but some barriers for a further dissemination of new power generation technologies remain, especially in the public sector. Further studies will address how to overcome these.