Lloyds Banking Group has recently declared that it will invest £1 billion into the British governments new Infrastructure Plan. Lloyds have identified nine social and economic infrastructure projects, three conventional power plants, and up to 12 clean energy projects where it will invest its money. Around £333 million will be set aside to be invested in renewable energy projects.
Chris Heathcote, Lloyds managing director and global head of project finance, said that Lloyds is mainly interested offshore wind, solar power, and biomass projects. "The areas that seem to be doing the most at the moment are offshore wind, including the off-take connections, and biomass is looking interesting, but I'm slightly cautious as it's still early days for biomass."
At the beginning of the month the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced a new government scheme called UK Guarantees which is designed to support infrastructure projects that may have suffered due to adverse credit conditions when the economy slumped. A total of £40 billion of projects could potentially qualify for the guarantees, with the majority in the energy or transport sectors.
Heathcote believes that Lloyd's £1 billion will help support the UK economy in the short term until the government scheme comes into play. "By providing this additional finance now, during the current economic cycle, vital projects can secure the financing required to progress so that the UK's infrastructure is ready for when growth returns," he said.
By. Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com
Charles is a writer for Oilprice.com More