CABEI provides US$1 million to Banco Atlantida for Partial Credit Guarantee for Clean Energy Generation in Honduras

Tegucigalpa.- The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) granted a partial credit guarantee of US$1,000,000 to Banco Atlantida SA to finance the Zingüizapa Hydroelectric Project, located in the Department of Francisco Morazán, Honduras.
 
The project involves the installation of 2.9 MW and will contribute to an annual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of about 10,703 tons of CO2.

The use of partial credit guarantees is promoted by the Accelerating Renewable Energy Investment in Central America and Panama (ARECA) Project, a tripartite initiative of the Global Environment Fund (GEF), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and CABEI. It allows financial institutions like the Banco Atlántida SA to promote the Honduran energy sector by facilitating financial investment in green initiatives, leading to greater participation of renewable energy in the Honduran energy matrix.

CABEI is the main source of financing for the region’s development, and its 2010-2014 Institutional Strategy, "Competitiveness with Integration and Social Development," seeks to promote initiatives that generate renewable energy through hydro, wind, biomass, geothermal and solar sources, contributing to sustainable development and reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

Thus CABEI, through the ARECA Project, promotes solutions for the development and execution of small-scale renewable energy projects (under 10MW) by providing small and medium project developers with access to credit by sharing credit risk with banking institutions that promote sustainable development in the Central American region.

In CABEI’s Institutional Strategy, environmental sustainability is a fundamental axis. To that end, the Bank is promoting renewable energy use in Central America and thereby streamlining the energy matrix, which is currently dependent on oil, leading to high electricity prices in the region.