Small-scale green energy solutions for businesses and households

We work with our retail banking and business banking clients to provide sustainable finance solutions for their homes and businesses.

Small-scale embedded generation

Our commercial asset finance division provides bespoke solutions for solar PV projects, enabling residential property owners and businesses to achieve access to affordable and secure energy supply. Since 2018, we have funded 189 small scale embedded generation commercial solar projects, amounting to over 32MW peak installed capacity. We have partnered with 30 solar PV companies to create a panel of approved solar PV engineering, procurement and construction partners (EPCs).

In 2020, we established a cross-functional team to identify challenges and opportunities to accelerate the adoption of decentralised energy solutions. Extensive client and industry engagement pointed to the need for a platform to connect business and industrial-scale energy users (off-takers) to solar PV EPCs. We created the PowerPulse platform to meet this need. The platform includes Standard Bank as a funding provider, able to facilitate and accelerate relationships. Additional funding providers will be added in the future.

The PowerPulse platform will see a dedicated decentralised energy team working together with clients to co-create solutions that match off-takers’ needs to the right service providers. This will reduce risk, friction, costs and delays for all participants, by ensuring the most suitable technical, legal and financial solutions are selected. The platform will be launched in South Africa in 2021, expanding into additional African countries thereafter. Future features such as measuring, reporting and system optimisation will be incorporated in due course.