IKEA Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation have announced a $1 billion joint venture that aims to reduce 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions and improve 1 billion lives with distributed renewable energy (DRE). The initiative will be operated through a new global platform. The $1 billion global platform to fight climate change and energy poverty will be the single largest distributed renewable energy initiative. Distributed renewable energy is renewable energy generated from sources such as minigrid and off-grid solutions, located near the point of use, rather than centralised sources like power plants. The platform aims to deliver clean and reliable power to the 800 million people worldwide who lack electricity, and a further 2.8 billion who have unreliable access. It will be run as a public charity to manage a concerted effort to rapidly channel development funds to life-changing projects on the ground. To facilitate the joint investment, The Rockefeller Foundation will incubate the platform in RF Catalytic Capital Inc., which the foundation launched in 2020. This offers an innovative way for impact investors, and governments to combine their resources and expand their global philanthropic reach.
While funding to support the energy, transition has increased at a global level, many organisations struggle to identify viable, investment-ready projects. As a result, many emerging economies still depend on unreliable and polluting energy sources. By creating a platform to deploy catalytic capital more efficiently, and at a scale that supports the expansion of local renewable energy projects, governments will be better able to achieve renewable electrification and development targets. Collective ambition is to create a platform that supports renewable energy programmes which can deliver greenhouse gas reductions fast and efficiently and accelerate the energy transition. Big, bold and pioneering collaboration and investment is required not only for the short term, but also the long term, to galvanise a better future.