The ArmPower, a German-Italian consortium planning to build a new thermal power plant in Armenia, has secured over $200 million in funding from the World Bank Group and other multilateral lenders.

The consortium consists of a subsidiary of Germany’s Siemens group and two Italian companies. One of them, Renco, will also act as the engineering, procurement, and construction contractor for the new Yerevan-based plant.

The Washington-based International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, also stressed the project’s economic importance for Armenia. “A modern 250-megawatt combined-cycle gas turbine power plant in the south of Yerevan will help increase efficiency for gas-fired electricity generation,” it said in a statement.

The statement said the funding for the project includes a “$42 million loan for IFC’s own account” as well as “$121 million from IFC’s innovative syndications platform … plus parallel loans from the Asian Development Bank, the OPEC Fund for International Development, and the German development finance institution DEG.”

In addition, it said, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), which is also part of the World Bank Group, will provide up to $39 million in loan guarantees to “help Renco manage non-commercial risks.”

“We are committed to starting the work as soon as possible to complete the commissioning of the plant within schedule,” said Renco’s chief executive, Giovanni Rubini.