March 2014: The Climate Investment Funds (CIF) and the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) released two publications from a one-year collaborative project that aims to achieve low carbon and climate resilient development. The publications share lessons learned from concentrated solar power (CSP) development experiences.

A background paper on ‘The Role of Public Finance in CSP – Background and Approach to Measuring Effectiveness’ analyzes the global CSP landscape, including its financing, markets, policies and technology, with the aim of better understanding how to structure public policies and investments.

A case study on the ‘Rajasthan Sun Technique 100MW CSP plant in India,’ describes the combination of public and private investment and national government involvement that enabled investment in one of the least expensive, large-scale CSP plants ever built. It outlines what did and did not work to inform the design of future domestic and international public finance investments on CSP.

The CPI-CIF partnership also intends to publish: a case study on the CTF-financed Eskom CSP Power Tower in South Africa; a brief on the Spanish CSP experience; and a policy brief synthesizing case study findings. It has also produced a series of CSP dialogues, which provide an opportunity to share experiences and explore emerging lessons for scaling up CSP finance. The dialogues bring together countries receiving CIF support for CSP projects, host countries involved in CSP projects, donor countries, project developers and financiers and multilateral development banks (MDBs).

CIF is investing US$1.2 billion in CSP projects to help support low carbon development and energy security, through, inter alia, emission reductions and job creation. To date, the CIF’s Clean Technology Fund (CTF) has provided funding for four countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, South Africa and Chile to support further CSP development. [CIF Announcement of Publications] [Publication: The Role of Public Finance in CSP – Background and Approach to Measuring Effectiveness] [Publication: Rajasthan Sun Technique 100MW CSP plant in India] [CSP Dialogues]