David Wagman

The Coalition for Green Capital and all 21 members of the American Green Bank Consortium released their 2020 Green Bank Industry Report.

The report said that green banks leveraged $1.69 billion of total investment by using $442 million of green bank funds. This brings cumulative green bank investment to $7 billion using $1.9 billion in green bank funds.

In 2020, the American Green Bank Consortium added five new green banks as members and said that government officials, local leaders, and market actors across 22 states were actively exploring or taking steps to develop green banks.

The report also stressed the value of federal green bank proposals proposed by Sens. Markey (D-Mass.) and Van Hollen (D-Md.) in the National Climate Bank Act (S. 283), and by Rep. Dingell (D-Mich.) in the Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator Act (H.R. 806).

Both bills would provide an initial capitalization of $100 billion to leverage the green bank model to deploy clean energy infrastructure. The Coalition for Green Capital has identified more than 100 different types of jobs that accelerator investment would support.

One of the newest green banks is the Philadelphia Green Capital Corp., which will be an affiliate of the Philadelphia Energy Authority. The authority runs solar, energy efficiency, and workforce development programs and has spurred $167 million of clean energy investments to date. Green Capital will scale and amplify this work by using green bank tools to unlock capital for clean energy projects.

With an official public launch planned for this summer, Green Capital plans to offer four products: predevelopment loans and term loans for non-profits and multifamily buildings, a revolving solar renewable energy certificate fund, and loans for low-income homeowners installing solar.

This article originally appeared on pv-magazine-usa.com, and has been republished with permission by pv magazine (www.pv-magazine.com and www.pv-magazine-usa.com).