• The European Commission and Bill Gates led Breakthrough Energy have jointly announced the launch of Breakthrough Energy Europe (BEE)
  • BEE will work as a pilot project linking public funding with long-term risk capital to enable radically new clean energy technologies from European companies to the market
  • It will be funded with half of the equity coming from Breakthrough Energy and remaining from EIB’s InnoFin financial tool
  • The fund will support technologies that reduce GHG emissions in the areas of electricity, transport, agriculture, manufacturing and buildings

A joint investment fund has been launched by the European Commission and Bill Gates led Breakthrough Energy worth €100 million ($114.7 million) through which innovative select European companies will be empowered to develop and bring radically new clean energy technologies to the market.

The new fund is a pilot project and is called Breakthrough Energy Europe (BEE); it links public funding with long-term risk capital to enable clean energy research and innovation to come to the market faster and more efficiently. While an official statement on the launch of the platform does not specify the technologies it will focus on, the idea is to reduce GHG emissions in the areas of electricity, transport, agriculture, manufacturing and buildings.

Half of the funding for this new venture will come as equity from Breakthrough Energy and the other half from InnoFin, a EU financial tool from the European Investment Bank (EIB). BEE is expected to become operational in 2019, said the EC, adding that this pilot project can serve as a model for similar initiatives in other thematic areas.

“We need new technologies to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Europe has demonstrated valuable leadership by making impressive investments in R&D. The scientists and entrepreneurs who are developing innovations to address climate change need capital to build companies that can deliver those innovations to the global market. Breakthrough Energy Europe is designed to provide that capital,” said Chairman of Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Bill Gates.

Background

Created on the sidelines of COP21 climate conference in Paris in late 2017, Breakthrough Energy Coalition was formed by a group of investors from 10 countries to bring innovative ideas from labs to markets in all nations that are part of the Mission Innovation. Latter also came into being at the same event as a group of 23 countries and the European Commission who pledged to double their clean energy research and innovation funding to about $30 billion annually by 2021.

Breakthrough Energy Coalition also created Breakthrough Energy Ventures as an investor-led fund.