Maarten van de Pas, ASN Impact Investors

'The only business plan for Europe is accelerating investments in energy. And this requires private investors in addition to governments and pension funds.' That was the urgent message of Diederik Samsom, one of the speakers at the symposium Opportunities for Energy Independence on June 16th in Amsterdam.

The European energy transition requires €800 billion a year, of which €40 billion to €50 billion must come from private investors, Samsom said. 'Private investors must take over from the government.'

Samsom spoke at Opportunities for Energy Independence, a symposium by PYM, ASN Impact Investors, StartGreen Capital, BigCircle Ventures, and Frontier Energy, discussing a robust energy system for the future and the investment opportunities this presents for funds and private investors.

Samsom was previously a campaign manager at Greenpeace, a member of parliament and chairman of the parliamentary group of the Dutch Labour Party, as well as chief of cabinet to the European Climate Commissioner on the European Green Deal. Today, he serves as an advisor and, among other roles, is a commissioner at GasUnion. 'The race between climate change and human efforts to combat it is going to be exciting, but we still have a chance. With help from innovation and AI.'

Climate slaps us in the face

There are three developments to keep an eye on, Samsom said. 'We live in a runaway climate. See the extreme storms and flooding in Valencia earlier this year. Or take Derna in Libya, where torrential rains and mudslides wiped out much of the city two years ago.' First, it was Al Gore with his film "An Inconvenient Truth" and the young schoolgirl Greta Thunberg who alerted us to the urgency of climate change; now, the climate is doing it itself, Samsom observes. "Climate change is punching us in the face.

Steep innovation curve

The "breathtakingly steep climb of the innovation curve" is another important development. The development of technology is now progressing at an incredibly fast pace, particularly in green technologies, including wind and solar power, batteries, and electrolyzers for producing hydrogen. 'The solar energy factor has grown a hundred times faster than predicted.'

As a physicist, Samsom believes in technology as a solution; he admits this. 'AI, or artificial intelligence, ensures that we invent new materials and technological applications with the computer, and no longer in a laboratory. As a result, the innovation curve is rising even faster.' Granted: AI costs an enormous amount of energy, but it also yields a lot. On balance, the pointer will be positive.

Europe in a New World

The third important development, according to Samsom, is that Europe is no longer naïve. 'Europe was completely dependent on Russia for its energy needs. We had been warned that things would go wrong at some point, but thought that Putin's expansion plans would not be that bad.'

With the invasion of Ukraine, we had a rude awakening. 'The days of cheap fossil energy are not coming back, so Europe must accelerate the transition to clean energy and become less dependent on fossil energy. It is not a new world we are moving into; we are already in it.'

Green Deal

As for politics, headlines about the European Green Deal being delayed or watered down, as well as those about U.S. President Trump, should be ignored, according to Samsom. 'Then you see the big movement, the important developments that define the next 10 to 15 years. We wrote the Green Deal in 2019, and since then it has survived a pandemic and a war. The urgency comes and goes and has ebbed away again for a while now, but is not disappearing. Progress never follows a straight line.'

According to Samsom, the effectiveness of the initiatives to make Europe climate-neutral by 2050 is great. ‘CO2 emissions are falling as expected. Whether we reach the finish line depends on the will and capacity of society.' In this, companies also play a role. Don't companies need a level playing field if they want to become more sustainable? According to Samsom, progress is not being made by companies that want a level playing field. 'It is more likely that there will be less level playing field rather than more, because that's part of rapid change.'

The Netherlands and industrial policy 

Meanwhile, the Netherlands should invest more in innovation to increase its competitiveness. Germany, for example, decided to invest 1,000 billion euros in innovation and industry. 'That is being emulated in France, Italy, and Spain. We in the Netherlands hate industrial politics. But we cannot disconnect ourselves from Europe.'

He also wants to say, with an eye on the upcoming elections, that the Netherlands needs a comprehensive vision of its total energy infrastructure, along with a plan to implement it. 'Both are lacking now.'

Local solutions for an energy transition

After Samsom's appeal, Erhan Yildiz of Startgreen Capital and Nick Brugman of ASN Impact Investors continued with a similar story. Their take on energy infrastructure: Investors can help revive the stalled Dutch energy transition by making targeted investments in local projects.

The Netherlands is struggling with increasing grid congestion and a growing number of hours with negative electricity prices, indicating an inefficient energy system. The current large-scale approach, which includes offshore wind and large solar farms, is insufficient to complete the energy transition. Instead, Startgreen and ASN Impact Investors developed a decentralized strategy that focuses on readily available solutions at the local level.

Implementing proven technology today

Their strategy combines five investment themes: clean energy generation, clean industry and circular manufacturing, clean mobility, built environment, and clean grid technology, focusing on proven technologies that can be implemented today.

This results in a local impact, combined with attractive returns for investors from the projects, which are further enhanced by growing demand for local energy solutions and supportive government subsidies, such as SDE++.

Battery storage for grid balancing

Yildiz and Brugman illustrated their story with three practical cases. The first project combines solar roofs with battery storage and charging infrastructure, with cash flows supported by subsidies, energy trading, and charging revenues. The second project involves a 6 MW battery storage system, complemented by a solar farm, for grid balancing, thereby providing more stable revenues. The third project collects waste gas from water treatment plants and delivers it as biogas to construction sites, among others, where it generates clean electricity.

By focusing on proven technologies and local partnerships, high-net-worth individuals and family offices can make a meaningful contribution to Dutch energy independence while taking advantage of the structural market opportunities presented by the energy transition.

Turning innovation into market solutions

Virtually at the source of the innovations that contribute to Europe's greater energy independence and innovativeness is BigCircle Ventures, Freerk Bisschop's venture builder. His mission is to transform breakthrough technologies into tangible market solutions for climate and circularity challenges.

That technology is currently hidden in the universities and research institutes in BigCircle Ventures' network. Bishop arrives earlier than traditional venture capital investors by identifying promising deep tech innovations at their source.

Once identified, they are thoroughly validated by industry experts before a startup is built around them with the right entrepreneurial team. 'It's not just about brilliant technology, but also about the right people who can turn this technology into a successful business.'

BigCircle aims to grow into the world's largest cleantech venture builder by creating dozens of new green tech startups over the next few years that will have a significant impact on achieving the 2050 climate goals. 'Many breakthrough technologies remain untapped because there is no bridge between research and market. We are that bridge.'

Renewable energy for Africa

That there are also opportunities outside Europe for investments in energy independence was evident from the presentation by Anders Hauch, co-founder and Investment Director at the Danish Frontier Energy. His private equity fund is shaping the energy transition in Sub-Saharan Africa through targeted investments in renewable energy projects, including solar, wind, and hydropower.

Africa is on the brink of an energy revolution, which Hauch wants to help accelerate. Since its founding in 2011, Frontier Energy has developed into one of the leading investors in the African market, developing, financing, building, and managing projects. This integrated approach distinguishes Hauch's company from traditional funds that often limit themselves to financing.

In addition to its headquarters in Copenhagen, Frontier now has offices in Nairobi, Kampala, Kigali, and Dar es Salaam, with a strong local presence in core markets such as Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

You have to be on the ground, Hauch explained. You cannot be successful in the African energy market from Europe without in-depth knowledge of local conditions and strong partnerships with local players. With more than 1,100 MW of renewable energy in various stages of development, his fund demonstrates how to achieve large-scale impact. Every megawatt Hauch adds to Africa's power grid contributes to economic growth and improved quality of life.

Ultimately, Frontier Energy aims to contribute to the creation of a sustainable, self-sufficient energy sector in Africa, laying the foundation for long-term economic development.

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