Energy Bank: Fund for Energy Efficiency and CO2 Reduction

The Development Bank of Japan (DBJ), a government-affiliated financial institution, and Japan Smart Energy Co., a Japanese accounting firm specialized in environmental issues, announced on 22 June 2007 that they had jointly established Energy Bank, the first fund of its kind in Japan, to invest in the installation of facilities that help reduce CO2 emissions. Energy Bank has entered into an agreement with Osaka Gas Co. on the funds operation. The fund started operating on 1 August 2007, and is expected to finance the installation of JPY 15 billion (about USD 120 million) worth of energy-efficient facilities in its first three years. Energy Bank benefits from the expertise of its partners for investing in facilities that will contribute to energy savings and reduction of CO2 emissions by use of natural gas. DBJ contributes financial know-how, Osaka Gas contributes technical know-how about energy-efficient facilities, and Japan Smart Energy contributes know-how about how to measure CO2 emissions. Investments are actually carried out under an energy service scheme. Energy Bank provides energy-saving facilities and supplies energy to customers, receiving a service charge based to the customer's energy consumption. This scheme allows customers to install energy-saving facilities without making an initial investment.Energy Bank procures target facilities by using funds from DBJ, after studying the expected energy-saving performance of the facilities. Subsequently the energy service is entrusted to Osaka Gas, which installs and manages the facilities, and measures energy consumption. The role of Japan Smart Energy is to verify the CO2 emission reduction effect using its expertise in this field.

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