EIB funding for electric buses in Spain
The European Investment Bank is providing 27.5 million euros to finance the introduction of cleaner buses in Spain. Specifically, it will support the modernisation of Grupo Ruiz’s bus fleet through the purchase of 32 electric and 141 natural gas buses for public transport.
The cities to benefit from the cleaner buses are Madrid, Mallorca, Badajoz, Toledo, Salamanca and Murcia and the deal for Grupo Ruiz also includes the construction of three charging stations in Badajoz, Alcudia and Palma de Mallorca. The 173 buses will enter service over the next two years, with 32 all-electric models being among them.
The EIB funding is part of a larger initiative that has been running since 2016. Called the Cleaner Transport Facility (CTF), the scheme has been helping many Spanish cities to replace polluting diesel vehicles with hybrid, electric or compressed natural gas (CNG) models. The project is also being supported by the larger Investment Plan for Europe.
EIB Vice-President Emma Navarro at the signing in Spain made out the support of cleaner public transport as one of EIB’s “key priorities”. This latest agreement is the fifth the EIB finances in Spain under this initiative, for which it has provided almost 230 million euros. The EIB suggests that these investments will also facilitate the creation of 360 jobs during the project’s implementation phase.
The European Investment Bank claims to be among the world’s largest multilateral providers of climate finance and aims to provide finance designed to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C in order to meet the Paris Agreement objectives. Last November, the bank’s directors agreed to gradually increase its financing for climate and environmental projects up to 50% by 2025, with the goal of ensuring that the EIB Group mobilises at least one trillion euros by 2030 to promote investments helping to meet the COP21 goals. To this end, the EIB will cease financing fossil fuel-based projects from late 2021, according to its statement.
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