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Iberdrola has signed a new green loan with the Official Credit Institute (ICO) for €59.4 million to speed up the roll-out of its sustainable mobility plan, which aims to install 150,000 charging points in homes, companies and public roads over the next five years, in line with its green recovery strategy. In this case, the funding will allow Iberdrola to strengthen its roadside charging network in Spain and Portugal with up to 2,500 new points.

The funding signed with ICO, with nine-year maturity, is the fourth green loan that the Institute has granted to the Spanish company to bolster the production and the use of energy from renewable, non-polluting sources. As part of its sustainable mobility plan, electric vehicle users who charge their vehicles at Iberdrola points will do so with 100% clean energy that comes with a Guarantee of Origin (GdO) certificate. They can also count on a green certificate from G-Advisory, which has issued its second party opinion.

The Iberdrola electric mobility plan, aligned with its green recovery strategy, also has the support of the European Commission in the form of a €13 million subsidy, granted to the company by the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) as part of the CEF Transport Blending Facility call, which will help to finance the installation of 2,339 fast, super-fast and ultra-fast electric vehicle charging points in Spain and Portugal by 2023. These new stations will be located on high-capacity roads in the two countries and close to the trans-European transport network (TEN-T).

The ICO has the status of an Implementing Partner in the CEF programme, with the aim of providing easier access by Spanish companies to European Union initiatives of this type. Specifically, this time it has prompted blending operations, i.e., operations that combine the use of the CEF subsidy mechanism with a loan component from one of the approved bodies in this programme, such as the ICO.  

Proposals sponsored by the approved bodies as part of the CEF programme have the express approval of the central government in the EU member state of the applicant institutions or companies. In Spain, this approval corresponds to the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA).

 

Electric mobility and green recovery

Iberdrola continues to push its stance for transport electrification as part of its strategy for a decarbonised economy, as a key lever in the reduction of emissions and city pollution, as well as for a green recovery in the post-Covid world.

The company has unveiled a sustainable mobility plan, with an investment of €150 million, with which it will increase its roll-out of electric vehicle charging points in the coming years.

The initiative entails around 150,000 charging points in homes, companies and on the public road network in cities as well as on the main motorways and highways over the next five years. The commitment to deploying high efficiency charging points will see the company install ultra-fast (350 kW) charging points every 200 kilometres, super-fast ones (150 kW) every 100 kilometres, and fast (50 kW) charging points every 50 kilometres.

Iberdrola is aware of the need to boost electric mobility in Spain through coordinated, effective action with the major players involved. The company has already completed more than 40 infrastructure roll-out agreements with government departments, institutions, companies, service stations, dealers and electric vehicle manufacturers.

The company has recently become the first Spanish business to subscribe to The Climate Group’s EV100 initiative, with the aim of accelerating the transition towards electric vehicles with a commitment to electrifying its entire fleet of vehicles and allowing its staff to charge their vehicles at its businesses in Spain and the United Kingdom by 2030.

 

Iberdrola

Iberdrola is a global energy leader, the number-one producer of wind power, and one of the world’s biggest electricity utilities by market capitalisation. The Group supplies energy to almost 100 million people in dozens of countries including Spain, the United Kingdom (ScottishPower), the United States (AVANGRID), Brazil (Neoenergia), Mexico, Germany, Portugal, Italy and France. With a workforce of more than 35,000 and assets in excess of €122 billion, it achieved a turnover of over €36.4 billion and a net profit of over €3.4 billion in 2019.

Iberdrola is leading the transition towards a sustainable energy model through its investments in renewable energy, smart grids, large-scale energy storage and digital transformation, to offer the most advanced products and services to its customers. Thanks to its commitment to clean energy, Iberdrola is one of the companies with the lowest emissions and an international benchmark for its contribution to sustainability and the fight against climate change.

The group is a pioneer in green funding, having been the first Spanish company to close a green bond placement, and so far has eight senior public issues with this format. It has also carried out private green placements and issued green bonds from other subsidiaries of the group, such as AVANGRID and Neoenergia. In line with this strategy, at the end of 2016 Iberdrola signed the world’s first green loan to an energy company and currently has green/sustainable funding of over €22 billion.

 

The ICO's commitment to sustainability

The ICO has made sustainability a horizontal action principle for its various facets: environmental, social and governance, both in liability transactions, by capturing funds on international markets and in channelling them into asset transactions to finance companies and projects, and in its social responsibility policy.

In this line of work, the ICO collaborates with the European Commission, the EIB and EIF to mobilise resources from the Community budget for Spanish companies. During the current Multiannual Financial Framework 2016-2020, it has furthered the channelling of €2 billion from the funds of the Juncker Plan (European Strategic Investment Fund) and, more recently and as an approved body in the Connecting Europe Facility programme, it has helped six alternative fuel projects by Spanish companies to receive European funds.

In 2019 it launched its first issue of green bonds on the market, for a value of €500 million, and operations worth more than €1.08 billion were approved to finance sustainable environmental and social projects.