New industry alliance warns immediate action required to fix net zero technology funding
Published: 19 August, 2021
An alliance of industry leading energy experts is to use SPE Offshore Europe (7-10 September 2021) to call for a drastic culture change between government, financial institutions, technology providers and the private sector to close gaps in the funding system for the novel technologies needed for the UK to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
FTech2Zero, which includes Siemens Energy, Wood, Net Zero Technology Centre, Deja Blue Consulting, Strategic Growth Services and the Energy Industries Council, contend that increased capital flows are not reaching the nascent technologies necessary to achieve the UK’s net zero goal due to disconnects between developers, financial institutions, end-user operators and government.
The group is to present ‘Financing Net Zero: Addressing Technology Risk for Financial Investments in the Energy Transition’ at the SPE Offshore Europe virtual conference on Friday 10th September. A white paper is being prepared for launch during COP26 in Glasgow in November.
The group surveyed more than 120 operators, service companies, technology companies, consultancies, and technology investment specialists and held several roundtables to test the survey data and core hypotheses.
Keiren Lake, business development at Siemens Energy said on behalf of FTech2Zero: “Ambitions to achieve net zero goals by 2050 with the same approach that government, investors and the private sector have adopted so far, will almost certainly fail. We have identified several challenges in financing novel net zero technologies that sit across the value chain. There is a disconnect on how all the parties view the approach to project development and risk mitigation and drastic culture change is needed to turn this around and to re-frame investment discussions.
“To remain on track with Net Zero 2050 targets, a much more encompassing approach is required where government, finance and industry work together to establish a new multi-stakeholder financing framework where risks can be both fully understood and appropriately shared.”
FTech2Zero is comprised of nine companies and industry organisations: ACL Impact, Deja Blue Consulting, The Energy Industries Council, EnergyKnect, Net Zero Technology Centre, Portland Advisers, Siemens Energy, Strategic Growth Services and Wood.
Energy transition topics will feature prominently at the SPE Offshore Europe 2021 virtual conference under the event theme ‘Oil & Gas: Working Together for a Net Zero Future’.
The virtual conference programme will begin each day at 12 noon (BST) / 7.00am (EDT) to accommodate international participants. Full programme details and registration can be found here.
Panel session at SPE Offshore Europe 2019
