Speech of Vice-President Šefčovič at the the Batteries Europe Governing Board meeting

Met dank overgenomen van Europese Commissie (EC) i, gepubliceerd op vrijdag 24 januari 2020.

Thank you Michael (Lipperts).

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very happy that I can join this first meeting of the Governing Board of Batteries Europe.

Let me please start by congratulating the entire Governing Board on its recent election [on 22 October 2019]. I am convinced that due to the high professionalism, broad experience and unique expertise of the Board the Batteries Europe platform will become the engine of our research and innovation agenda.

I also would like to thank all partners with whom I have worked in previous years, notably the InnoEnergy, the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) and the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE).

I trust that the Batteries Europe will play an increasing role as the research and innovation strand of the European Battery Alliance. Its biggest added value is that it works across sectors and throughout the whole value chain. For instance, scale-up issues cannot be solved without close collaboration between materials providers and battery manufacturers. “Second use” and “vehicle-to-grid” issues, in turn, require a strong collaboration between automotive and energy sectors.

The European Batteries Alliance is a real success story on which we want to build. We want to replicate the blueprint of the European Battery Alliance in other sectors, such as the European Digital Infrastructure and Hydrogen. The strategic value chains will be at the core of the upcoming industrial strategy for the 21st century (to be adopted in March 2020).

The European Battery Alliance is a key enabler to our long-term vision for a climate neutral economy, particularly for the mobility and clean energy sectors transformation. The Commission is strongly committed to deliver on this headline ambition. The Green Deal i that was adopted on 11 December 2019 will be followed this year by a climate law and higher CO2 emissions targets for 2030 (50-55%) next year.

These policy developments linked with the electrification and roll-out of renewable energy will further push the demand for batteries.

Demand for batteries in Europe is expected to increase to 800GWh by 2030. Large part of the battery demand (at least in the first phase) will come from the automotive sector (400 GWh by 2028). Batteries will be the fastest growing storage type in years to come reaching € 250 billion in 2025.

Furthermore, Bloomberg New Energy Outlook report forecasts that, by 2040, 57% of all passenger vehicle sales will be electric and will represent 30% of the global vehicle fleet.

The link between innovation and competitiveness is now more important than ever. As we want to reap a fair share of the growing market for batteries, expectations vis-à-vis advancements on battery research side are enormous. We need batteries with higher energy density, better performance and based on new advanced materials. To succeed, Europe should not only invest to improve lithium-based battery technologies and in the upcoming next generation of solid-state battery technologies but it should look further ahead.

Batteries Europe should fully embrace its role of R&I coordinator of the European Battery Alliance. Batteries Europe should guide industry, Member States and the Commission in the area of funding of battery research and innovation. You have my full support in this respect.

To that effect, we have to bear in mind other initiatives in the pipeline, which you will be closely working with:

  • Horizon 2020 battery calls, including long-term research calls guided by Battery 2030+ initiative.
  • Industry led innovation Projects of Common European Interest on battery research with Member States collaborating. The so-called IPCEIs.
  • Interregional (smart specialisation) innovation partnership on advanced battery materials. Now including 28 regions and at least 10 projects identified.
  • The Business Investment Platform (BIP) to channel private funding around innovative manufacturing projects in all segments of the value chain. More than 20 billion euros are in the pipeline.
  • SET-Plan coordination of national research and innovation on batteries - this was the basis for batteries Europe, as you know.

All of these initiatives are clearly complementary, but still a special effort is needed to achieve maximum synergies, complementarity and to secure the maximum share of the EU funding for the research on batteries.

As most of you are involved in the battery IPCEIs (either the first or the second one), you will be able to provide your vision and guidance on how we could best plan Horizon Europe spending to ensure optimum complementarity. We will also have to see how to best liaise with smart specialisation partnership on advanced battery materials.

On our side, we are ready to help and considerably increase the funding on batteries in the next 7 years in the context of establishing the public-private partnership on batteries within Horizon Europe. Already today we can say with a good degree of certainty that the level of funding under the new multiannual financial framework will higher than between 2014-2020 when Horizon 2020 alone has granted € 1.34 billion (2014-2020) to projects for energy storage on the grid and for low carbon mobility. (Calls in 2019 and 2020 amounted to 114 and 132 million euro respectively).

I look forward to our future meetings and discussions on innovation and research in batteries sector.

Once again, I wish you All the best success in your new functions and a very fruitful first meeting.