Financing mechanisms for renewable energy

It has been widely recognised for more than a decade that one of the principal barriers to the wider dissemination of renewable energy systems in the developing world is the lack of appropriate financing systems. This paper looks at recent initiatives in financing systems with particular emphasis on accelerating the wider use of photovoltaic (PV) systems. Solar PV systems are considered to be the most viable way of providing small scale electricity services to many of the 2 billion people who presently have no access to electricity world-wide.