Walney Offshore Windfarms, United Kingdom

Walney Offshore Windfarms (WOW) in the U.K., the largest offshore windfarm in the world in 2012, faced financing challenges because of the risks associated with this immature though promising technology and the escalating European debt crisis. Through a combination of U.K. policy support and innovative financial engineering, the project was successful in attracting nontraditional investors including a pension and a private equity fund.

About the San Giorgio Group case studies

In October 2011, Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) and the World Bank Group, in collaboration with China Light & Power (CLP) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), hosted the inaugural meeting of the San Giorgio Group, a new working group of key financial intermediaries and institutions actively engaged in providing green, low-emissions finance.The mission of the San Giorgio Group is to provide valuable insights on how to scale up climate finance and spend available resources more wisely.

To this end, Climate Policy Initiative is examining a series of case studies to determine how the use of public money can catalyze and incentivize private investment in low carbon technologies, and to draw lessons for scaling up green finance.