Portfolio Partner Profile
Honduras Renewable Energy Financing Facility
Managed by Deetken Impact Sustainable Energy, a Canadian impact asset manager with professionals in Canada, Honduras, and Costa Rica, the Honduras Renewable Energy Financing Facility (H-REFF) focuses on strengthening renewable energy capabilities by providing financing for renewable energy projects in Central America. As economies in Central America have started growing at an increasing rate, dependence on fossil fuels for transportation and electricity has become unsustainably high. H-REFF will provide financing to projects that utilize solar, wind, biomass, biogas, and energy efficient technologies across Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. H-REFF will finance a dozen small-scale renewable energy project while creating thousands of new jobs in the region.
As CO2 emissions reduce in the region and more people see the expansion of existing sustainability efforts, H-REFF will continue to break down barriers in the renewable energy sector. In addition to delivering solid financial returns, Deetken Impact Sustainable Energy is committed to benefiting the communities where they work by generating meaningful and measurable environmental and social impacts that contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Featured Impact Story
Impact Story
Soléco Energy
Soléco Energy is a women-led business driving an equitable renewable energy transition in Jamaica by fostering women’s employment, leadership, and inclusion across the value chain of solar generation projects. The company develops and finances solar photovoltaic distributed generation projects for commercial and industrial clients through long-term solar lease agreements. Soléco Energy recently completed an award-winning 2MW project across four sites for Caribbean Broilers, a poultry processing company in Jamaica. With a strong pipeline of projects, the company is expanding to other Caribbean countries such as the Bahamas and Barbados.
Deetken Impact provided tailored technical assistance to the Soléco Energy team to develop a solar panel assembly and installation training program for women in the surrounding communities. In addition, the technical assistance helped the team complete the UN’s Women’s Empowerment Principles tool, develop a sexual harassment policy, and train team members to address gender gaps and opportunities in the renewable energy sector. As a result of the program, Soléco Energy implemented policies and practices to ensure an inclusive and safe workplace at project sites that apply to contractors across the value chain. Additionally, Soléco Energy expanded employment and career opportunities for women in their communities, and increased the company’s investability by implementing initiatives that directly respond to the gender-related milestones set by one of their lenders, IDB Invest. The milestones included concrete targets regarding women’s employment, career development, training, as well as the implementation of policies and procedures across the value chain to ensure inclusive working conditions. Read more about Soléco Energy’s work to advance gender equity in the Renewable Energy Sector.
Photo credit: Soléco Energy Limited
Impact Story
KW Financial
KWF Holding, S.A. (KWF) is a Panamanian registered company operating as a financier for solar generating photovoltaics projects for Commercial and Industrial clients in the Dominican Republic. KWF contracts engineering, procurement, and construction services to build solar power plants on clients’ properties, providing them with self-generated solar electricity. Any surplus electricity may be fed back to the national grid.
Projects are financed through tailor-made commercial structures including leasing agreements for up to 15 years, after which ownership of the system is transferred to the end client and the energy savings are fully captured for at least 15 more years. Systems achieve significant cost savings compared to electricity from local utilities. For example, KW Financial’s first project client received a 40% cost savings on local electricity prices.
Photo courtesy of Deetken Impact Sustainable Energy
Impact Story
Honduras Biomass Energy feeds the circular economy
Honduras Biomass Energy is an independent power producer based in Honduras that generates electricity from biomass waste products sourced from the local plywood and wood industry. Their “Los Pinos 1” biomass plant has a capacity of 3.0 MW and generates 4.4 GWh/yr preventing the emission of over 9,000 tons of CO2 per year. The power plant supplies both electricity and industrial heating to the adjacent plywood factory which in turns supplies waste biomass creating a circular economy for the region. More than 4.4 GWh of clean electricity has been generated per year, over 108,000 tons of CO2 diverted during investment period and HB Energy has generated over 30 direct jobs and over 90 indirect jobs in the region. It has also supported the employment of over 93 women in the adjacent plywood factory.
Photo courtesy of Deetken Impact Sustainable Energy.
Impact Story
Hydropower for Betulia
Betulia, a community located in the Department of Colon, Honduras, hosts the site of a renewable energy project funded by H-REFF and General Equipment Supply SA (GES). The Rio Betulia Hydroelectric Power Plant is a five-year run-of-the-river project that uses the water flowfrom the Betulia river for energy generation, providing renewable energy to local communities and strengthening local and regional electricity systems.
Like many places around the globe, the department of Colon has been hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the third highest number of infected people in the country. It is also one of the poorest regions in Honduras, as the majority of families live off subsistence fishing or agriculture. Due to stringent restrictions on movement imposed by the Honduran government, along with the spread of the virus in Colon, people are unable to work or travel to urban areas to sell their products and purchase inputs. As a result, Colon’s communities are extremely vulnerable and lack adequate access to food.
To address these problems, GES createda plan to increase their reach inlocal communities. Despite the difficulties of sourcing and transporting food supplies during this time, they sourced, purchased, and delivered basic food baskets to 170 families living in the area, benefiting more than 1,080 people. During the month of April, GES delivered food baskets with beans, rice, sugar, cornmeal, butter, pasta, salt, coffee, tomato sauce, soup, and laundry soap to the communities of Betulia, Samaria, La Fortuna, and Sapote, all located in the Betulia river basin. These donations allowed community members to comply with the social isolation rules, while stillhaving enough food to feed their families. Through H-REFF, Deetken Impact is proud to partner with companies that not only aim to create a positive social or environmental impact but continually support the evolving needs of the communities in which they operate.
Read more on Deetken Impact's blog.
Photo courtesy of General Equipment Supply.
Environmental Sustainability
Renewable Energy
Gender Equity
