ECONOMYNEXT – Proparco, the private sector arm of the French official lending agency, Agence Française de Développement (AFD) is interested in looking at financing Sri Lanka’s grid scale battery energy storage systems, opened for private investors, a top official said.
“We would be interested to look at it,” Djalal Khimdjee, Deputy Chief Executive of Proparco told reporters in Paris.
“We have financed recently some renewable projects with those kinds of batteries, be it in Asia, in Africa, or in Latin America. So, we can look at it.
“Obviously, we will then look at the different dimensions of the project with the off-taker, the capacity of the off-taker to buy the electricity products, etc., but yes, definitely.”
Proparco has helped finance private BESS projects in Uzbekistan, Africa, Cambodia and Indonesia, he said.
Sri Lanka’s archaic grid needs large scale investment to accommodate more renewable energy, and battery energy systems are one of the solutions that can be deployed with reasonable speed to improve grid stability.
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Sri Lanka recently suffered a cascading failure due to the so-called ‘Sunny Sunday effect’ due to a large volume of rooftop solar power coming into the grid on a holiday when overall demand was low.
Sri Lanka is also expanding larger ground mounted solar and wind plants, increasingly with ramping, to stabilize output.
State-run Ceylon Electricity Board called offers for the first battery energy system recently, where investors are expected to set up a build-operate-own BESS on a 15-year concession.
The deadline to submit bids, originally set at September 10, has been extended to October 15.
Prospective investors interested in Proparco financing will have to connect with the agency. It has an office in New Delhi to cover South Asia.
Proparco is 85 percent owned by the French development finance institution Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and a group of private and multilateral lenders.
The institution finances private firms with the objectives of helping countries reach sustainable development goals, protecting the planet, and reducing inequality.
Proparco provides about 2.5 billion dollars of annual financing, some of which goes into funds that disburse to smaller ultimate recipients.
Around 20 to 30 percent go into infrastructure and the rest into manufacturing and services.
Out of commitments of 2.8 billion Euros in 2024, about a third went for climate related projects.
Of its portfolio of 9 billion euros about 6.5 billion euros was in debt and around 1.7 billion euros in equity. Lending to Asia was around 15 percent of the total, or a little under a billion Euros.
Under France’s Indo Pacific strategy, Asia is now becoming a focus area for the AFD group, officials said.
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AFD itself, which finances governments and state agencies also finances pumped storage facilities, of the type planned by Sri Lanka and is looking for finance. (Paris/Sept21/2025)