Business Secretary Vince Cable has today announced the formation of a new Green Investment Bank (GIB) advisory group tasked with ensuring that the new institution is ready to begin lending to low carbon infrastructure projects from April next year.

The independent group will be chaired by Sir Adrian Montague, chairman of private equity group 3i and Anglian Water Group, and former chairman of nuclear operator British Energy.

Montague hailed the new position as “a privilege, and an irresistible opportunity”, adding that he was now looking to appoint a group of independent experts to the board.

“The GIB is a genuinely radical innovation,” he said. “The keys to its success are going to be precise targeting and brilliant execution … The GIB needs the best people in order to get off to a flying start.”

Cable, who today published a progress report on the new bank, said that he was working to clear the way to ensure the bank can begin lending within a year.

He said £775m will be available from next year, after which the remaining £2.25bn coming onstream between 2013 and 2015.

Reiterating comments made by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg yesterday, Cable said that the bank would need to clear EU state aid rules before it can be formally enshrined in legislation and launched.

However, he added that in order to make “rapid progress” the government has committed to make direct state aid compliant investments in green infrastructure projects from April next year even if the bank has not been formally launched at that point. The Department for Business said that those investments would then be transferred to the bank at a later date.

The Business Department also provided a little more detail on the types of projects in which the £3bn bank will initially invest, confirming that its initial remit “will be to focus on green infrastructure assets and on the twin objectives of achieving significant green impact and making financial returns”.

It also echoed Clegg’s prediction that the bank would first target offshore wind, non-domestic energy efficiency and waste, before branching out to support other areas.

The apparent focus on infrastructure projects and relatively established low carbon technologies is likely to fuel fears among some green groups that the bank will fail to support innovative clean tech research projects and embryonic green technologies such as marine power or geothermal energy.

Responding to a question in the House of Commons from Green MP Caroline Lucas, Cable said that nuclear was not an “appropriate sector for the bank” at this stage, but that he would not rule out the bank’s supporting nuclear projects in the future.

“There seems to be this temptation to get us to rule out nuclear in the future,” Cable told reporters after giving his statement in the House. “There is no prospect within the near future that nuclear would be one of the sectors [the bank will support]. But we don’t know how the economies of technologies might change.”

Cable admitted the bank would have to make money or “cover costs at the very least” in the longer term and would be looking to Montague and the advisory group for direction on how to achieve this.

He said there was a “strong possibility” that the bank would be able to borrow from capital markets, but this was dependent on the country’s ratio of debt to GDP falling.

So-called Green bonds or other financial mechanisms also remained an option, he said.

“We have agreed with the Treasury that bond issuance is one possible way of expanding,” Cable said.