Bangladesh minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak talks to Jacopo Dettoni about the government’s ambitious Digital Bangladesh programme designed to reach village level. 

The chairman of the board of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus talks to fDi about preserving financial stability and diversifying the country’s export split.

Europe’s most well-known digital disruptor banks have been expanding across the globe, but not without some controversy. Alex Irwin-Hunt reports.

Jose Maria Romay, general manager of Corani (a subsidiary of Ende), has announced the company is seeking financing from Latin American development bank CAF and French development agency AFD for the 147-MW Banda Azul hydro project.

Energy Vault, the creator of a new way to perform utility-scale energy storage, announced that SoftBank Vision Fund (Vision Fund) invested $110 million in its Series B funding round. Energy Vault will use the funds to accelerate global deployment of its technology, which enables renewables to deliver baseload power for less than the cost of fossil fuels 24 hours a day, said the company. As part of the investment, Andreas Hansson, Partner for SoftBank Investment Advisers, will join the Energy Vault board of directors.

Virginia’s energy office is exploring whether to align the state with a billion-dollar New York clean energy financing program.

Last week, Houston, TX Mayor Sylvester Turner announced that Sunnyside Energy, led by developer Dori Wolfe of Wolfe Energy LLC, has won a competition to be considered to repurpose a 240-acre former landfill in Sunnyside. Subject to meeting certain terms and conditions, the team will construct one of the largest urban solar farms in Texas., if not the largest.

The California-based utility requested that a federal bankruptcy court prevent FERC from enforcing the conditions of the more than 380 power purchase agreements (PPAs) that the utility may want to exit under its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

Bank asset management is known to be an opaque subject. Thankfully, Diana Weis and Sarah Disch, each co-heads of the Solar Asset Management groups at their organizations, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo Bank respectively, shared their expertise with me at SAMNA 2019. They each have over a decade of experience in solar finance. Here are three key takeaways bank asset management experts Weis and Disch shared:

In October of this year, the European Parliament voted in favor of a ban of the ten most notorious single-use plastics that harm our planet and marine life, including straws, plastic cutlery and cotton buds. The vote also committed to a move towards a circular economy – recognizing the inherent value of the 2.12 billion tonnes of waste that is dumped globally each year. Yet questions remain about how we deal with the items not on the list, the ones where there are no obvious alternatives; the fruit trays, the ice cream tubs, the burger boxes. With waste generation expected to double by 2025 we must continue to act on this growing crisis and be more innovative with waste.

Italy’s Five Star Movement used to rave about towns like Montieri, a village in the verdant Tuscan foothills that burns little coal or natural gas. Instead, the local power plant harnesses steam rising naturally from hot springs deep underground to generate electricity.

The Brazilian bank Itau Unibanco Holding SA raised 1.05 billion reais ($408 million) to finance renewable energy and water treatment projects.

Canadian utility BC Hydro and the McLeod Lake Indian Band have forged an agreement that will give the aboriginal group "economic development opportunities and other benefits" related to the construction and operation of the Site C hydroelectric project.

Electricite de France (EDF) and the World Bank are joining with the government of Cameroon to fund the €$1.2 billion (US$1.3 billion), 420-MW Nachtigal hydropower plant.

The World Bank has approved US$390 million in additional financing to be used by Pakistan's Water and Power Development Authority for extensions of its Tarbela hydroelectric plant.

Energy Vault, the creator of a new way to perform utility-scale energy storage, announced that SoftBank Vision Fund (Vision Fund) invested $110 million in its Series B funding round. Energy Vault will use the funds to accelerate global deployment of its technology, which enables renewables to deliver baseload power for less than the cost of fossil fuels 24 hours a day, said the company. As part of the investment, Andreas Hansson, Partner for SoftBank Investment Advisers, will join the Energy Vault board of directors.

Presentation by Michael Freda of Oracle’s Semiconductor Packaging & Technology Group.

Germany’s biggest utility E.ON — long a pillar of the country’s fossil fuel and nuclear industry — dropped a bombshell on Europe’s business world with the announcement that the multinational was exiting the conventional energy market in favor of a new business model based on renewables, intelligent grid systems, energy management and other services. Indeed, the company seems finally to have drawn the logical consequences from the Energiewende, Germany’s renewable energy transition, after years of resisting the ambitious transformation of the nation’s energy supply.

The Brazilian bank Itau Unibanco Holding SA raised 1.05 billion reais ($408 million) to finance renewable energy and water treatment projects.

The World Bank indicated in its new report "Building Competitive Green Industries: The Climate and Clean Technology Opportunity for Developing Countries" that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries are set to undergo significant growth and create more jobs in the field of clean technology. Anabel Gonzalez, senior director for the World Bank's Global Practice on Trade and Competitiveness, said developing home-grown clean-tech industries will help developing countries more effectively increase the adoption of low-cost clean energy and drive sustainable economic development.

Join Austrade's webinar to gain insights on the Bangladesh E-commerce market, emerging trends, growth drivers, regulations, route to market and opportunities for partnering with Bangladesh online companies.

The San Francisco-based utility is under investigation for any role its equipment might have played in the deadly wildfires of late 2018, only one year after getting blamed for an earlier, devastating rash of blazes.

On January 14, 2019, California’s largest utility, PG&E, filed a bankruptcy notice stating that it plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the month end on January 29th. Given its business situation, PG&E must proceed with the bankruptcy process unless lawmakers step in because PG&E’s current liabilities from California’s 2017 and 2018 fires are about 10 times PG&E’s current market cap of $3.5 billion, which is down 90% since last Fall. Obviously, this is a big issue for the cleantech industry since PG&E covers a territory that runs from Eureka to Bakersfield, including 106,000 miles of electric grid.

The California-based utility requested that a federal bankruptcy court prevent FERC from enforcing the conditions of the more than 380 power purchase agreements (PPAs) that the utility may want to exit under its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

Virginia’s energy office is exploring whether to align the state with a billion-dollar New York clean energy financing program.

With e-commerce accelerating in cities across India, it’s easy to miss how consumer behaviour is changing right across the South Asia region.

The Bangladesh eGovernment Computer Incident Response Team, or CIRT, is taking several steps to strengthen cybersecurity, including building a sensor network to help enable all banks to share threat intelligence, says Tawhidur Rahman, CIRT's head of digital security and diplomacy.

The Bangladesh eGovernment Computer Incident Response Team, or CIRT, is taking several steps to strengthen cybersecurity, including building a sensor network to help enable all banks to share threat intelligence, says Tawhidur Rahman, CIRT's head of digital security and diplomacy.

The Bangladesh eGovernment Computer Incident Response Team, or CIRT, is taking several steps to strengthen cybersecurity, including building a sensor network to help enable all banks to share threat intelligence, says Tawhidur Rahman, CIRT's head of digital security and diplomacy.

The Bangladesh eGovernment Computer Incident Response Team, or CIRT, is taking several steps to strengthen cybersecurity, including building a sensor network to help enable all banks to share threat intelligence, says Tawhidur Rahman, CIRT's head of digital security and diplomacy.