New Delhi — New Energy Nexus recently announced that it is increasing its exposure in India by investing in the cKers Finance Sustainable Energy Bond (SEB), a specialized green bond instrument developed in partnership with the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance (the Lab).

“Overall, cKers Finance has helped deploy over $30 million in the last 24 months. New Energy Nexus has invested a total of $5 million into cKers Finance, which we think is excellent leverage to accelerate the development of new distributed solar segments,” shared Danny Kennedy, Chief Energy Officer at New Energy Nexus.

SEBs are specialized instruments that allow investors to have exposure exclusively to sustainable energy assets. [bctt tweet=”Unlike traditional green bond issuances which are usually larger than US $50 million, SEBs are viable at sizes of US $2-5 million.”] The smaller issuances help reach a wider range of investors, to catalyze investments that are imperative to raising capital for distributed clean energy. Over the past three years, cKers Finance has developed a range of financing products for developers, renewable energy service companies (RESCOs), and clean-technology companies to enable them to grow.

“We helped catalyze creation of over 45 megawatts of distributed solar energy assets across 100+ locations across India. Our specialty is in being able to do smaller ticket-sizes, which most traditional financiers shy away from,” said Pawan Mehra, Director and CIO of cKers Finance.

Bond process are used to scale-up newer models that accelerate decentralized solar segments. These include pay-as-you-go models in India for residential and commercial solar systems, solar pumps, floating solar, solar cold chains, and in emerging energy service company models (ESCO) that promotes energy efficiency.

The impact reporting measures of the bond were designed with support from the Lab. The methodology for measurement of impact and its attribution was developed by the sustainability advisory firm, cKinetics.

Support for the project has also come from the US-India Catalytic Solar Facility Program, a collaboration between India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust.