Alpiq and the Swiss engineering consultancy BG Consulting Engineers recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ”R20 Regions of Climate Action” alliance. The three partners will jointly develop sustainable energy projects, primarily in developing and emerging countries.
As a main pillar of economic progress, an adequate electricity supply is crucial for developing and emerging countries. However, in many regions, this infrastructure is underdeveloped or even inexistent. Moreover, quite often, there is even a lack of funds for feasibility studies for infrastructure development projects. In this pre-investment phase, R20, Alpiq and BG will contribute towards the realization of energy projects that use renewable energy sources, such as solar, hydropower, wind, and biomass. Beside the climate protection aspects, an additional advantage of such projects is that they relieve the financial burden that fossil fuels place on economically weak regions.
The R20 alliance and its network consisting of cities and regions worldwide, have identified more than 400 infrastructure project opportunities that are in line with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. The majority of these projects are located in Africa. The objective of the partners will be to establish a pre-investment structure for projects in the areas of renewable energy and energy efficiency. This structure will enable the most promising project proposals to be selected and technical and economic feasibility studies to be carried out. BG and Alpiq will be responsible for conducting these studies that will also focus on the sustainable operation and maintenance of the new infrastructures. The financing and implementation of the projects will be the organised by R20 and its associated investor groups. Furthermore, R20 will also assume the role of coordinator between the local, regional and national authorities and the project developers.
The memorandum of understanding was signed during R20’s Austrian World Summit in June 2017 in Vienna.
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