The Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund (GEEREF) was initiated in 2006 by the European Commission and has been operational since 2008. The GEEREF is under the authority of the European Investment Bank (EIB) and is managed by a team from the European Investment Fund (EIF).
Objectives
The fund is being used to support public-private partnerships in developing and newly industrialized countries concerned with renewable energy and energy efficiency. To achieve this, GEEREF invests in regional funds in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the MENA regiona and Central Asia/Caucasus.
The fund focuses on small and mid-sized projects in countries that politically permit commitments by the private sector. It mainly realizes projects with budgets of less than €10 million, as such projects do not receive enough consideration from private investors.
Key developments
GEEREF currently invests in 10 funds. In addtion, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) approved the project GEEREF NeXt in 2017. The project has been criticized by civil society organisations for being too little transparent and for not establishing criteria to exclude biomass from renewable energy funding. The project has lapsed since 2021.
Funding volume and Germany’s contribution
GEEREF has a total of €222 million under management, coming from both public donors and private investors which mobilized over €10 billion of private investments. The donor countries – the European Commission, Germany and Norway – are contributing €112 million. Germany has pledged a total of €24 million to the GEEREF (as of December 2022).