The New Development Bank (NDB), recently established by the five Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), is set to loan Eskom some $180 million – at current exchange rates about R2.57 billion.
According to reports, the South African parastatal will use the money to build transmission lines to connect 500MW of renewable energy (RE) from independent power producers to the national grid. Eskom's loan is one of many given out by the Bank, which has made available some totalling $811 million, to be disbursed in intervals, supporting 2370MW of RE capacity.
Kundapur Kamath, NDB President, said:
"This is an important milestone for the Bank and we are delighted to have met the goals and the time schedules envisioned by the leaders of the Brics countries. With this we embark on a journey to provide speedy assistance to projects across developing nations. We are pleased that the projects deal with green and renewable energy and hope they will act as catalysts for development in our member states."
Kamath added that each loan modality is different and based on project-specific features and borrower preferences. Thus far, four loans had been approved, one each to South Africa, Brazil, China and India, with more to come.
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