The $500-million which was endorsed for South Africa in October under the international Clean Technology Fund (CTF), has enabled the government to leverage about three times the amount of additional finance for clean technology projects.

"We have now got $1,6-billion that has been leveraged out of that [CTF], and it looks as if there can be more leveraged," said Environmental Affairs DDG Joanne Yawitch on Thursday.

She further explained that once finance was "put on the table", government could leverage further funds for projects with the potential for long-term greenhouse gas emission savings.

These funds came from international and local investors and allowed lines of credit to be established, which could then "facilitate things happening in a way that government budgets can interact with them".

She stated that, in the short-term accessing or finding money was not the problem, "but accessing it in a way that is coherent and where we are able to understand what there is, and have a global picture on how we can use the money effectively", was the challenge.

The CTF, is administered by the World Bank group, and South Africa presented its investment plan at a meeting in Washington DC in late October.

Engineering News previously reported that the South African plan included using CTF financing for:
• the reduction of the high capital costs associated with the construction and operation of Eskom's proposed 100-MW concentrating solar power (CSP) project, planned for Upington, in the Northern Cape;
• the development of the first utility-scale wind power plant, consisting of a 100-MW Eskom wind farm in the Western Cape Province Wind Energy Facility;
• pioneering private-sector wind projects of a further 100 MW and creating a robust pipeline of large-scale wind projects;
• supporting municipalities and the private sector in the deployment of solar water heaters (SWHs), with a target of achieving 50% of the South African government goal of converting one-million households from electric geysers to SWHs over five years; and
• scaling up energy efficiency investments by 
catalysing the expansion of bank lending to the 
commercial and industrial sectors through lines 
of credit to commercial banks and addressing barriers to energy 
efficiency investments.

The CTF has also endorsed country investment plans in Egypt, the Middle East and North Africa region for a CSP project, Mexico, Morocco, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam.