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- Herausgeber: European Investment Bank
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
People and businesses expect Europe to support investments for the future. Investments that improve lives. Investments that reinforce security and offer new opportunities. In 2024, the EIB Group unveiled a Strategic Roadmap that does just that. Organised around our core strategic priorities, we aim to accelerate the green transition, boost technological innovation, bolster security and defence, and support regional cohesion and social infrastructure. Our commitment to international development and capital markets integration safeguards Europe's strong global presence. Our priorities boost growth, prosperity, and technological and social progress in individual Member States, across the whole European Union and around the world. They are aligned with the agenda of Europe's leaders on competitiveness, strategic autonomy and economic security. Our work in these areas contributes to a strong voice for Europe around the world and helps tackle today's geopolitical challenges. This report highlights projects that encapsulate our work in each of these priorities.
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PRIORITIES FORPROSPERITY
2024 ACTIVITY REPORT
About the European Investment Bank
The European Investment Bank Group is the EU bank and the world’s biggest multilateral lender. We finance sustainable investment in small and medium-sized enterprises, innovation, infrastructure, and climate and environment. We have financed Europe’s economic growth for six decades and are at the forefront of EU crisis response, leading the world in climate investment and backing development of the first COVID-19 vaccine. We are committed to triggering €1 trillion in investment in climate and environmental sustainability to combat climate change by the end of this decade. About 10% of all our investment is outside the European Union, where our EIB Global branch supports Europe’s neighbours and global development.
WHAT’S IN THIS REPORT
People and businesses expect Europe to support investments for the future. Investments that improve lives. Investments that reinforce security and offer new opportunities. In 2024, the EIB Group unveiled a Strategic Roadmap that does just that. Organised around our core strategic priorities, we aim to accelerate the green transition, boost technological innovation, bolster security and defence, and support regional cohesion and social infrastructure. Our commitment to international development and capital markets integration safeguards Europe’s strong global presence. Our priorities boost growth, prosperity, and technological and social progress in individual Member States, across the whole European Union and around the world. They are aligned with the agenda of Europe’s leaders on competitiveness, strategic autonomy and economic security. Our work in these areas contributes to a strong voice for Europe around the world and helps tackle today’s geopolitical challenges. This report highlights projects that encapsulate our work in each of these priorities.
CONTENTS
2024 HIGHLIGHTS, LENDING AND IMPACT DATA
THE EIB GROUP IN YOUR COUNTRY
THE EIB IN YOUR WORLD
OUR CORE STRATEGIC PRIORITIES
1. CLIMATE
Germany: Energy from the good earth
Germany: A grid for the green heart
France: Giga-push for batteries
Italy: Dome of renewables
Poland: Finally safe
2. DIGITALISATION AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
Belgium: No sleep mask required
Finland: Technology without an expiry date
Germany: Take a teledrive
Italy: An electrifying future
Spain: Sparking motorcycle evolution
Austria: A green fix for steel
Spain and Sweden: A tide of innovation
Poland: Light leap
France: Adjustable antibodies
3. SECURITY AND DEFENCE
Denmark: Reinventing Esbjerg
4. A MODERN COHESION POLICY
Italy: A tough decision
Romania: Rooftop transition
Slovenia: Expanding green energy
Poland: Track to the sea
5. SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Cyprus: Rooms to grow
Austria: Lots of room to rent
Czechia: Ostrava’s encore
Italy: No oxymoron
6. AGRICULTURE AND BIOECONOMY
Greece: Reservoir of resilience
Spain: Oil of a different origin
Denmark: Mycellium mince
Germany: Modernising the dairy
Germany: A delicious solution
7. HIGH-IMPACT GLOBAL INVESTMENT
Bosnia and Herzegovina: A current flowing to the future
Albania: On track
Ukraine: All of us are helping each other
South Africa, Mozambique, Taiwan: Equity makes things happen
Mauritania: A future of diversity
8. CAPITAL MARKETS UNION
Spain and France: Platforms for capital
WHERE THE MONEY COMES FROM
GOVERNANCE
GROUP OPERATIONAL PLAN 2025-2027 HIGHLIGHTS
2024 HIGHLIGHTS
The European Investment Fund (EIF), part of the EIB Group, specialises in risk finance to support micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and stimulates growth and innovation across Europe. It provides financing and expertise for sound, sustainable investment and guarantee operations. EIF shareholders include the EIB, the European Commission, public and private banks and financial institutions.
THE EIB’S IMPACT
THE EIB GROUP IN YOUR COUNTRY
Darker colours signify higher investment as a percentage of GDP.
THE EIB IN YOUR WORLD
The European Investment Bank does not endorse, accept or judge the legal status of any territory, boundaries, colours, denominations or information depicted on this map.
Following EU sanctions against Syria in November 2011, the EIB suspended all loan and advisory activity in the country. However, the EIB is part of the Syria core donor group monitoring the situation under EU and UN co-leadership.
CLIMATE
Scaling emerging clean technologies is one of the most urgent challenges Europe faces today. Innovation in cleantech is advancing at an unprecedented pace, but translating breakthroughs into scalable, market-ready solutions – especially through first-of-a-kind demonstrations – remains a formidable and capital-intensive task. These pioneering projects often carry high risks, making it essential to establish strong partnerships between the public and private sectors to overcome these hurdles. We are committed to bridging this critical funding gap for growth-stage companies and catalysing impactful partnerships to accelerate the deployment of transformative technologies. By supporting Europe’s most promising cleantech ventures, we aim to drive our energy transition forward, foster economic resilience and secure Europe’s position in the global clean economy.
Irene Gálvez Verdú, head of cleantech equity and growth capital, EIB Operations
Finance for resilient, green infrastructure is more critical than ever, because of scary, new destructive storms, droughts and rain bombs. The European Investment Bank is in the privileged position of being able to contribute at scale, supporting government policies and attracting important amounts of private capital to climate finance. As the EU climate bank, I believe we can still become more agile in our execution, do more, and maintain a clear, long-term policy direction that perfectly complements all other strategic priorities.
Dirk Roos, head of energy transition programmes, EIB Projects
ENERGY FROM THE GOOD EARTH
In Germany, drilling is underway to harvest heat and energy from subsurface rock, an innovative solution that does not rely on water reservoirs
Daniel Mölk first worked in the Bavarian town of Geretsried in the early 2010s, on a project seeking hot subsurface water reservoirs for a plan by the local utility to generate hydrothermal energy. They didn’t strike water, but Mölk and the team learnt almost everything there was to know about the earth and rock formations around the town. That laid the foundations for a pioneering geothermal endeavour in the same spot 13 years later.
Geothermal energy projects mostly involve capturing heat from subsurface water or steam reservoirs through drilling. However, in Geretsried and many other places, underground water is not available or accessible. So Mölk, managing director of Eavor Germany, a subsidiary of the Canadian company Eavor, drills deep into the earth and harvests the heat from the rock itself.
The first commercial-scale Eavor-Loop is being built in Geretsried with the help of a €91.6 million grant from the EU Innovation Fund and €45 million in financing from the European Investment Bank. It’s an innovation that will provide clean, renewable heat and electricity to the equivalent of 30 000 households in the region.
The system resembles a giant underground radiator. Eavor’s technicians drill two vertical wells to a depth of between 4 500 and 5 000 metres. Then they drill 12 pairs of horizontal lateral channels 3 000 to 3 500 metres long from the base of each well, making a total of about 80 km of drilling per loop. (Geretsried’s system will have four such loops.) The giant radiator is then filled with clean water. A pump initiates the flow of water. When the pump is switched off, the system continues to operate naturally on a “thermosiphon.” That means the water in the bottom of the system is heated by the underground rock through conduction and naturally rises to the surface, where it can be used directly for district heating or to generate power. The system emits less greenhouse gas than conventional geothermal systems since there is no need to reinject new fluids and because it does not require the extensive use of pumps.
The first loop of the Geretstried Eavor-Loop project is scheduled to be operating by the end of 2024. All four loops are expected to be running by 2026. The company is working on a second project in Hannover.
When the pump is switched off, the system continues to operate naturally.
A GRID FOR THE GREEN HEART
Thuringia’s grid gets upgrade to iron out bumps in the road to decarbonisation
To cut its CO2 emissions and strengthen its energy security, Europe is investing massively in renewable energies like wind and solar power. But the intermittent, weather-dependent supply of electricity from sunshine and wind makes it difficult for grid operators to predict and manage electricity supply and demand. Reliance on renewables can also make it more difficult for grids to maintain a stable electrical frequency. This poses a risk to their stability, as it makes the system less able to withstand sudden disturbances, like the loss of a large generator, or a sudden drop in wind.
The distribution grid operator in Germany’s Thuringia region, TEAG, is one of many grid companies in Europe investing now to address these bumps in the road to decarbonisation. Known as “the green heart of Germany” for its dense forests, Thuringia generates more than 57% of its electricity from renewables, including 22.4% from wind.
In April 2024, TEAG signed a €400 million loan under the European Union’s REPowerEU plan with the European Investment Bank to help finance a €600 million investment programme to upgrade its sprawling regional network. It serves 620 municipalities, many of which are small, with only 10 000 to 20 000 inhabitants. Thanks to the loan, TEAG will be able to double its investments in the electricity grid and employ at least 300 additional staff.
We expect a massive increase in the need for renewables.
“We expect a massive increase in the need for renewables,” says Mike Karaschinsky, division manager at TEAG. “Germany has gone from a very centralised system based on coal and nuclear power plants located close to consumption centres to a very decentralised system where generation takes place when the weather conditions are best. The challenge is to understand where the future flows will take place and which routes will be busiest.”
Intelligent network
As part of the investment programme, new power cables and overhead lines of all voltages will be installed, and others will be replaced. Substations will also need to be built and modern network components will be required for automated and digital dispatching. The investments are necessary to upgrade the grid to connect more decentralised producers and users of solar and wind power, among them consumers who want to connect solar panels, heat pumps and wall boxes to benefit from the digital transformation.
“With the increase in electromobility, with car batteries and charging systems that can feed back into the network, we need to invest in a much more intelligent network,” says Karaschinsky.
GIGA-PUSH FOR BATTERIES
French startup Verkor is building a gigafactory in Dunkirk to mass-produce battery cells for 300 000 electric cars each year
Benoît Lemaignan and five others founded the French battery company Verkor in July 2020. The startup’s name is a reference to the Vercors mountain range, which overlooks Lemaignan’s native Grenoble. Growth has been as steep as the slopes of those peaks.
After raising an initial €250 million for its innovation centre in Grenoble, Verkor was quickly able to bring in more funds, including €650 million in state subsidies under the France 2030 plan, which is intended to help French industry keep up by investing massively in innovative technologies and the green transition. The subsidies included €60 million from the Hauts-de-France region and €30 million from Dunkirk.
In April 2024, the European Investment Bank approved €270 million in direct loans to Verkor, to help build the company’s gigafactory in Dunkirk, with the support of InvestEU. In addition, the Bank plans to sign intermediated loans with participating commercial banks that could bring its total financing of the project to €400 million.
Volatile markets
All this investment is not without risk.
“Raising billions of equity and debt financing in the electric vehicle battery market is not simple for startups like Verkor,” says Olivier Kueny, a European Investment Bank loan officer who worked on the deal. “Demand for electric cars and prices of raw materials are very volatile, and these mega projects face technology, market and construction risks that make the structuring of finance a delicate matter for sponsors and lenders.”
Batteries account for between 30% and 50% of an electric vehicle’s cost, and electric vehicles are still more expensive than comparable fossil fuel-powered cars. Carmakers are working to reduce the cost, so that European-made electric cars can be competitive compared to fossil fuel-powered cars and Asian-made electric vehicles. “It is a very competitive sector,” says Jonas Wolff, a lead engineer at the European Investment Bank. “There is a technology risk, because manufacturers are constantly pushing the boundaries to get a bit more out of the cells, so they can lower their price.”
How to push boundaries
The cathode, a key component of a lithium-ion battery, for example, is made of a mixture of nickel, manganese and cobalt with some lithium and other metals. “The recipe for this mixture is proprietary,” Wolff says.
The metals are expensive and highly volatile, with complex supply chains and extraction and manufacturing processes. The trend is to reduce the amount of expensive and volatile metals in the mix to reduce costs and increase price stability. There are also compliance considerations linked to the supply chains, which are often located beyond the European Union. “We try to have a local production of material and then extend it to Europe and beyond,” says founder Lemaignan. “Some materials will still come from Africa, South America and Asia. But typically, our lithium supply will come from Europe. We’ll have some nickel supply in Europe and some cobalt supply from Morocco. We are developing these value chains together with Renault.”
The gigafactory’s location near the port of Dunkirk will facilitate the import of raw materials and the export of finished products to Renault’s factories. With four production lines, the gigafactory is expected to produce battery cells for up to 300 000 vehicles annually. The project is also expected to create 1 500 to 2 000 jobs in Dunkirk by 2030.
This operation checks all the right boxes. It’s an innovative European startup, it facilitates the green transition of the European automotive sector, and it contributes to Europe’s global competitive position in a key sector.
