Wednesday, June 9 2010 20:45

ArmInfo. Armenia has the biggest water energy development capacities in the Caucasus, IFC Director for the Caucasus
Thomas Lubeck said while visiting Jermuk, where IFC and Ameriabank are building a new small water power plant "Jermuk-2."

Lubeck expressed hope that IFC's $15mln financial support will allow to build small WPPs with a total capacity of 150MW and to reduce CO2 emission by 30,000 tons a year. This is part of IFC's enlarged strategic program to combat global heating. The total budget of the program is $1bln. Armenia strongly needs own renewable energy sources as part of its domestic power demand is still covered by means of imported energy.

To remind, in Dec 2009 IFC and Ameriabank agreed to carry out a program in the field of renewable power engineering. IFC has provided the Armenian bank with $15mln. The loans are issued for 8 years at longest, at 11% at lowest. During the first 3 years the borrowers will have to pay just interest on the loans.