Standard Bank has signed a $250m loan agreement with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) to fund green energy projects in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ben Kruger, Standard Bank Group CEO, said: “This transaction is significant for the Standard Bank Group as it provides a diversified funding platform to fund projects which are environmentally and socially sustainable, as well as providing alternative green sources of energy to the grid, not only in South Africa, but also in sub-Saharan Africa.”

“This ties into the overall objectives of the Group to fund projects in Africa in the renewable energy sector,” he added.

The deal was signed by Standard Bank’s Kruger and JBIC Chief Representative, London Representative Office, Akira Ishikawa.

The credit line is co-financed by Mizuho Bank with JBIC providing a partial guarantee for the co-financed portion.

In South Africa, Standard Bank has been instrumental in funding more than 940MW of renewable energy as part of Eskom’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPP) initiated by the government.

The Bank-funded wind farm project in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province has become the first of Eskom’s REIPPP initiatives to reach financial close in late 2012 and begin successfully delivering power to the national grid in 2013.

Standard Bank was also the sole mandated lead arranger and underwriter of both the Herbert and Kalkbult renewable energy projects in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province.

Excluding South Africa, the entire installed generation capacity of sub-Saharan Africa is only 28 Gigawatts, roughly equivalent to that of Argentina.

The World Bank estimates that between $120 bn and $160bn needs to be invested each year - over and above existing levels of expenditure - to bring energy access to everyone in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030.