StanChart eyes $800 million in renewable deals

SINGAPORE - Standard Chartered Plc said it planned to invest in several renewable energy projects in Asia worth over $800 million.

"We provide debt, advisory and equity across the sector," Brad Sterley, director of the bank's renewable energy and environmental finance team, told Reuters on the sidelines of a clean energy conference in Singapore.

The projects include a solar manufacturing venture in China worth up to $500 million and a $300 million geothermal energy project in Indonesia.

"We see some opportunities across all sectors but the sectors that would see most of these are wind, solar and water," said Sterley.

Sterley said the bank also planned to invest in a solid waste-to-energy project in China and a wind and a solar power venture in India.

The projects are on top of financing worth up to $10 billion for clean technology which the bank plans to mobilize under its commitment with the Clinton Global Initiative in 2007.

The bank has so far tapped half of the committed financing, but is targeting putting all the funding to work in markets including Asia, Africa and the Middle East by 2012.

"We see growing opportunities in waste, and hydropower is another significant subsector," said Sterley.

He said many of the technologies in the renewable space such as solar thermal could present growth opportunities going forward as they become more commercialized.

"Solar thermal is a technology which has been around for a long time but it really went dormant for about 20 years," he said, citing a lack of effort to commercialize the technology.

"Recently we've seen a lot of interest in solar thermal, not yet in Asia, but we believe it's coming," he said.