E+Co Invests in Clean Energy Worldwide

Bloomfield, NJ, USA, February 9, 2007:

Although they don’t have much, La Esperanza, a small rural community in the middle of Honduras, now has clean energy. La Esperanza receives its power from a hydroelectric facility owned by a local entrepreneur dedicated to providing clean energy to his community. The town is no longer reliant on dirty sources of energy for cooking and lighting. Nor is it waiting for the national grid to supply it with energy generated from fossil fuels.

The people of La Esperanza have access to clean energy because local and international donors and investors are supporting clean energy enterprises like La Esperanza Hydroelectric Facility throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia.

It is none too soon. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report last Friday stating that global warming is “unequivocal,” highlighting the need for prompt action. E+Co, the leading provider of services and capital to modern energy enterprises in developing countries, has been taking action in the fight against global warming for more than a decade.

E+Co reported today that in 2006 it approved $10.5 million for 36 new investments in enterprises that will provide clean energy access to households and businesses in 17 developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

As a result of these investments, E+Co is on track to reach its goal of providing modern energy services to 10 million people by 2010.

Investments approved in 2006 provided working capital to renewable energy companies in Mali and Ethiopia that will decrease air pollution and deforestation by providing solar home systems to rural households. In Bolivia, families in remote mountainous areas can now light their homes and cook with clean energy delivered to them by E+Co investee companies. E+Co investments in two Chinese biogas enterprises will help meet that country’s huge demand for energy without resorting to fossil fuels.

Since 1998, E+Co has mobilized over $140 million of capital for clean energy enterprises providing modern energy services to over 3.4 million people, saving 462,000 tons of firewood and producing 140 million liters of clean water. E+Co investments annually offset 2.2 million tons of climate changing carbon dioxide.

“The investment record for 2006 is the best ever and a major step in our achieving the scale and impact appropriate to the challenge of climate change and energy poverty. Local entrepreneurs deserve the credit for what success has been realized. They remain the largely untapped resource available to protect the planet and provide life enabling services to their neighbors. We are privileged to work with them,” said E+Co executive director Philip LaRocco.

About E+Co

E+Co is the leading provider of services and capital to modern energy enterprises in developing countries. Organized as a not-for-profit, public purpose investment company, E+Co has offices in Bolivia, Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Ghana, the Netherlands, South Africa, Thailand and the United States.

For additional information on E+Co contact:

Gina Rodolico
gina.rodolico@EandCo.net
1.973.680.9100