EBA250 summer update

A lot has been achieved since the official launch of EBA250 in October 2017.

The EBA250 network has developed into the meeting point for the industrial, R&I and financial stakeholders of the growing European battery ecosystem. As reference, in the 4th report on the State of the Energy Union April 2019, the European Commission acknowledges the major progress that European Battery Alliance, as a whole, has achieved since its launch.

Some more evidence of recent progress:

• On April 30th, seven Member States invited by Vice-President Šefčovič confirmed their deep interest in mobilising funds to support the rapid expansion of their Batteries value chain, with concrete projects coming soon to reality (Read more).

• Following the announcement by the French and German Ministers, Bruno Le Maire and Peter Altmaier to invest several billion euros in the batteries sector, Maroš Šefčovič confirmed that Brussels was prepared to approve €1.2 billion in public subsidies from France and Germany, with the official green light expected by October 2019 to develop Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI). IPCEIs are an important instrument enabling Member States to mobilise national public funding for projects aiming at developing new products, processes or services with a high research and innovation content. Those projects will boost, but not replace, the massive (more than €70 billion) investments immediately required all along the Batteries value chain to capture the European €250 billion market by 2025 and reach a 400 GWh batteries supply capacity by 2025.

• Following the output of the last EBA250 Stakeholder Meeting on January 29th and listening to your input on how to bridge the gap between financial institutions and businesses, EIT InnoEnergy has since then, with the support of selected financial institutions and industrial partners, designed a Business Investment Platform for Batteries, the EBA250_BIP.  In his speech at the European Investment Bank (EIB) Board of Directors’ meeting on June 12th, Vice-President Šefčovič declared once again his full support for EBA and announced that “…our partners, through EIT InnoEnergy, again with the support of the European Investment Bank and the Commission, have designed a Business Investment platform for Batteries.”

• The objective of this EBA250 Business Investment Platform (BIP) is to accelerate the creation of a European battery industry by facilitating and accelerating the transactions between industrial projects and financial investors, be those public, private or a syndication of both. The platform will be open and available for all stakeholders of EBA250, and beyond. This matchmaking platform should create an additional flow of €70 billion into the EU based projects.

• Another important milestone in the establishment of a European battery ecosystem is the in-principle agreement announced by the European Investment Bank to support the financing of Europe’s first homegrown gigafactory for lithium-ion battery cells, Northvolt Ett, in Sweden with a €350 million loan.

• The establishment of BatteRIes Europe – the Technology and Innovation Platform for Batteries. BatteRIes Europe will be the one-stop shop for the battery-related R&I ecosystem and will gather research and industry to identify and prioritise the main research and innovation needs for the whole battery value chain in Europe in the near and medium future. The first BatteRIes Europe Stakeholder meeting was held June 25^th in Brussels.*

The next EBA250 meeting will be held in Brussels on Wednesday, September 25th 2019. At this event the Business Investment Platform mentioned above will be officially launched, among other important topics. Please save this date in your calendars – an invitation to EBA250 members will be send out after summer!

At EIT InnoEnergy, we strongly believe that the combination of these different EBA initiatives is making the EU a major industrial actor of batteries, for our own European needs and for developing export industry as well. As member of the EBA250 network, you are all contributing to set a reference for Europe´s industrial future. The Investment Platform will bring all of us, quicker to that future and help capture the €250 billion in 2025 for the European economy.

We hope to meet you all with recharged batteries at our next EBA250 meeting – until then have a regular look at our eba250.com website where we will announce upcoming events and meetings of interest for the EBA250 network community.

* Note: the next BatteRIes Europe Stakeholder Event will be held later this year. All news related to BatteRIes Europe will be published on: http://batterieseurope.eu/