Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/809226
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 9 APRIL 2017 Energy & Environment VII FACEBOOK, Microsoft and venture capitalists at Allotrope Partners have set up a facility to finance energy access projects in Indonesia, India and East Africa. The Microgrid Investment Accelerator, or MIA, will seek to mobilise $50 million from 2018 to 2020 and will tap grants and loans from foundations and development banks to attract private capital into projects that help to transmit renewable energy over small electricity networks. "MIA will test the commercial opportunity for microgrids and demonstrate how concessionary finance can unlock progressively larger proportions of private capital as risks are discovered, priced, and mitigated," MIA CEO Alexia Kelly said. A microgrid is a miniature power system that operates independently of a national grid. The US International Energy Agency estimated that more than 1.2 billion people don't have access to electricity, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and develop- ing Asia. As renewable energy technologies, such as solar pan- els, become cheaper, microgrids have emerged as an option to more people. Helping provide energy access is a method to tie corporate social responsibility together with business development at companies peddling electronic services and devices. Provid- ing power to people off the grid could eventually open up large new markets for computers and social networks. MIA has signed up more than a dozen implementing partners and observers. It will start to request plans for pilot projects in the third quarter this year and expects to begin disbursing funds in 2018. "The Microgrid Investment Accelerator will not only be a powerful tool in driving much-needed capital into projects, but will also help to bring down costs, build a stronger ecosystem, and catalyze innosation," said Micro- soft's Kevin Connolly, the director of energy affordable energy access initiatives at the software company. Facebook and Microso nancing green power microgrids