The government is to move the Green Investment Bank into the private sector, seeking new investors to power its growth.

The Edinburgh-based institution unveiled its 2014-15 results at a London review attended by chancellor George Osborne and business secretary Sajid Javid, and said it made a £3million profit in the second half of the year and a £100,000 full-year profit.

Mr Osborne said the bank now needed to "to access larger pools of capital and act more freely to invest in a broad range of green sectors". Mr Javid said it needed to be "free from limitations on where it can borrow money and EU regulations on state aid".

Chairman Lord Smith of Kelvin said the bank had established a successful business model."Our challenge now is to build a funding strategy which provides us with the capital to match our investment ambitions."

The bank committed £723m of its own capital, taking the total to over £2bn in its two and a half years of operation, backing 50 projects with a current value of over £8bn.

During the year its investment arm raised an initial £463m for the world's first offshore wind fund, attracting support from a sovereign wealth fund and UK-based pension funds.