Groundbreaking Partnership
At COP26 in Glasgow, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Bill Gates, the Founder of Breakthrough Energy, together with European Investment Bank President, Werner Hoyer, formalized a partnership to mobilize funding in emerging climate technology projects located in the EU-27. The EU – Breakthrough Energy Catalyst Partnership seeks to mobilize up to €820 million between 2023 and 2027.
The partnership will seek to identify and support projects with high potential for impact & cost-down trajectory in the following sectors:
- Clean Hydrogen (Delegated Act Compliant) to decarbonize industry and transportation
- Long Duration Energy Storage to provide cleaner and more reliable power in addition to heat
- Sustainable Aviation Fuel to power aviation
- Direct Air Capture to remove CO2 from the atmosphere
Projects that are ready-to-build within 9-12 months will be prioritized.
Project Types
Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, the EIB, and the EC will fund two types of projects under the partnership: Demonstration Projects and Large First-of-a-Kind (“FOAK”) Projects
- Demonstration Projects – Small projects that de-risk earlier-stage emerging climate technologies (TRL 5-7; Project Size between ~€30M-100M)
- Large FOAK Projects – First-of-a-Kind projects focused on emerging climate technology scale-up & market creation (TRL 6+; Project Size between ~€100M-1B)
Funding Products
Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, the EIB, and the EC are able to provide a variety of funding products to help support emerging climate technology projects:
- Demonstration Projects – Venture Debt from the EIB and Capex Grant from Catalyst – more information on EIB’s Venture Debt product can be found here
- Large FOAK Projects – Equity & Grant from Catalyst combined with Quasi-Equity & Grant deployed by the EIB (using EU budget resources)
The EU will align capital with Catalyst funding from funds available from Horizon Europe & Innovation Fund through the InvestEU Program.
Applications for Funding Consideration
Apply for funding using the link below.