Investors Dialogue on Energy

Dear Reader,

If you missed the latest Commission announcement (though we’re sure you didn’t! 😉), here’s a quick recap:

• The Commission presented the Clean Industrial Deal, which aims at supporting the competitiveness and resilience of Europe’s industry. The Deal will accelerate decarbonisation, while securing the future of manufacturing in Europe. The Deal presents measures to boost every stage of production, with a focus on: 
  • Energy-intensive industries such as steel, metals, and chemicals, that urgently need support to decarbonise, switch to clean energy, and tackle high costs, unfair global competition, and complex regulations;
  • The clean-tech sector which is at the heart of future competitiveness and necessary for industrial transformation, circularity, and decarbonisation.

As part of the Deal, the Commission also released the Affordable Energy Action Plan, which aims at speeding up the roll-out of clean energy, accelerating electrification, completing the internal energy market with physical interconnections and using energy more efficiently and cut dependence on imported fossil fuels.

What are the next steps? 

Operationalising the Clean Industrial Deal, the Clean Energy Investment Strategy will aim to facilitate transition at the lowest possible cost and unlock private capital by removing barriers to investment to meet the EU’s climate neutrality by 2050.

 What does this mean for the ID-E? 

As part of Round 17 of WG meetings, our WG Members will have the opportunity to provide key inputs and considerations on the design of the upcoming Strategy. The meetings will take place during the next two weeks.

 On the ID-E, what a month it has been!

• The 3rd Plenary Meeting of the Investors Dialogue took place on 27 February 2025 and gathered around 270 participants both onsite (Brussels) and online. The event report is available in this edition.

Yours truly,
The Editor

Director-General for Energy, Ditte Juul Jørgensen opened the event with a keynote speech emphasizing the importance of lowering barriers to investments in order to facilitate the transition to a clean energy future. Thanking the ID-E members for their work, the Director General highlighted the pressing investment needs to decarbonize, while also addressing the interconnected issues of competitiveness, energy costs, and security. To achieve this, simplification of the regulatory framework is crucial, with the first two omnibus directives being an important first step, but more actions are forthcoming. The Director General encouraged attendees to provide feedback on areas where simplification is needed. The recently released Affordable Energy Action Plan is key in making the energy transition more affordable and competitive. A new European Competitiveness Fund is also being established to support strategic sectors.

Following the keynote speech, high-level speakers from the European Commission, the Polish Presidency to the Council, the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the World Fund shared their insights on the future of energy financing in a first policy session.

The event featured additional three technical sessions, each tackling critical aspects of energy investment and innovation:

The first session featuring Working Group members focused on key discussions over the past year within the Working Groups regarding recommendations for pilot schemes across the five segments of the energy value chain.

The second session examined whether public-private financing instruments effectively support the scale-up phase of clean tech industrial projects, with a particular emphasis on guarantees. The discussion identified two pressing needs: 1) securing financing for early-stage clean tech start-ups and 2) mobilizing large private investors to scale up industrial projects. Drawing on the success of InvestEU and EU guarantee tools, the panel explored how guarantee schemes can evolve to address these needs and create a seamless EU financing ecosystem.

The last session addressed the challenge of moving energy innovations from research to market deployment. The session began by assessing whether innovations successfully progress beyond the research phase into real-world applications or if they tend to stall after the initial R&D stage. Building on this, the discussion shifted towards effective strategies, policies, and mechanisms that can help overcome these challenges and how different funding mechanisms can work together more effectively to accelerate the scale-up of energy innovation.

The Plenary Meeting gathered 270 participants both onsite and online, and we welcome feedback from those who attended. Share your thoughts here.

A recording of the sessions will soon be available on the ENER Youtube channel.

Plenary Meetings are held annually in Brussels. This is a key event culminating the yearly activities of the Investors Dialogue on Energy, and it is open to the ID-E Community and its stakeholders. Stay tuned for the last Plenary that will take place in January 2026.

Round 17 of WG meetings will focus on the Clean Energy Investment Strategy. This round is particularly significant, as the ID-E will have the opportunity to provide key inputs and considerations on the design of the upcoming Strategy.

To enhance the discussion, we have decided to hold some joint meetings with two WGs to leverage synergies and complementarities, as well as to introduce dedicated meetings on cross-cutting topics: Research & Innovation and Energy Efficiency.