Guyana renewable energy market is still at an early stage and power supply remains heavily dependent on imported fuels. To incentivize the deployment of renewable energy the Government is providing tax incentives to ensure that prices for renewables remain competitive with conventional imported resources. There are other barriers that need attention to scale up and make use of the country’s abundant natural energy resources. Addressing such barriers would help reduce the cost of power and pave the way for sustainable access to renewable energy. 

The project objective is to support the development of potential utility scale renewable energy projects for public-private partnership and GCF funding. To facilitate the implementation of renewable energy projects, and ultimately the Country Programme being developed, potential national accredited entities from the Energy Sector will be assessed and the nomination by NDA of two entities will be supported, while raising their awareness on GCF funding opportunities. As key Government partner, the private sector will be engaged in the process of prioritizing utility scale renewable energy projects and made aware of potential access to GCF through Private Sector Facility. Addressing barriers to scale up and make use of the country’s abundant natural energy resources would help reduce the cost of power and pave the way for sustainable access to renewable energy. In line with this, the proposed project will undertake policy and institutional assessment and provide recommendations as well as for innovative financing to leverage private sector investments. 

The project outcome will be the following: i.) Develop the country program by preparing a pipeline of renewable energy utility scale projects and pre-feasibility analysis for the shortlisted projects and preparing at least 2 concept notes ii.) Nominate Direct Access Entities and prepare gap assessment iii.) Leverage private sector investment into renewable energy projects; Review and recommend changes in regulation and propose innovative business models that leverage the private sector investment in the renewable energy iv.) Increasing awareness of GCF and its Private Sector Facility. 

Impact: N/A 

Outcome: N/A 

Project Outputs completed in 2019: 

i. Green Growth Policies: 

Policy Assignments:  

• Delivered a desktop analysis of Renewable Energy solutions for the 12 main grids in Guyana and provided support to the Government of Guyana in shortlisting 3-4 grids to prepare a pre-feasibility analysis of the viable Renewable Energy options. 
• The draft assessment indicate the PPP policy framework adopted by Guyana in 2018 needs to be strengthened to be able to work on energy projects.

ii. Green Investments: 

• Advisory outputs for inform bankable projects: GGGI Guyana provided support to Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) in the design and tender of three PV-tied systems in the township of Bartica, Lethem and Mahdia.  
• Advisory outputs that aim to create enabling environment: i.) Nomination of GCF accredited entities ii.) Recommendation to strengthen PPP policy to enable energy projects iii.) Recommendation on changes in legislation to enable IPPs. 
• Green investments catalyzed: Total of USD 10.90M green investments catalyzed. USD 8.6M concessional loan from Inter-American Development Bank and executed by GEA. USD 2.3M awarded by UAE-CREF, to provide energy at 15% cheaper than BAU. 

iii. Capacity Building and Knowledge Products:  

• 2 Capacity building activities in the form of GCF capacity building workshop to private sector and technical capacity building for GPL and GEA engineers. 

Project Manager: David Fernandez 

Chan ho Park, Ferro Santetti, Julie Robles, Muharrem Askin, Su Jeung Hong