Engineering news
The Paris Climate Conference (COP21) has opened with Bill Gates' announcement of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, which will see Gates and a global group of billionaire philanthropists including Richard Branson, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon chief executive Jezz Bezos, invest in a fund to boost green technology.
In a tweet Gates said he was excited to announce the coalition which aims to 'dramatically scale up' the public research pipeline to create a new energy mix and bridge the valley of death.
The Breakthrough Energy Coalition said it aims to put forward a new model of public-private partnership between governments, research institutions and investors because the current model is failing. The coalition said: “The existing system of basic research, clean energy investment, regulatory frameworks, and subsidies fails to sufficiently mobilise investment in truly transformative energy solutions for the future.”
The billionaire investors hope that by pooling their collective wealth they can increase the global clean energy output, particularly in developing countries.
In his blog, Bill Gates said: “The renewable technologies we have today, like wind and solar, have made a lot of progress and could be one path to a zero-carbon energy future. But given the scale of the challenge, we need to be exploring many different paths—and that means we also need to invent new approaches. Private companies will ultimately develop these energy breakthroughs, but their work will rely on the kind of basic research that only governments can fund. Both have a role to play.”
In a paper, Energy Innovation: why we need it and how to get it, Gates outlines his case for investing in energy innovation and the goals of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition. Five guiding principles are outlined in the paper: 'invest early' to provide seed and 'angel' investment to de-risk the technology and promote further investment, 'invest broadly' looking at a range of sectors from energy storage to agriculture, 'invest boldly' looking at novel technologies such as flow batteries and solar paint, 'invest wisely' relying on advice from leading public and private institutions, and 'invest together' working with countries whose governments commit to expanding their fundings for research on clean energy.
Gates said that the coalition will focus on early-stage companies that could make reliable zero-carbon energy available to everyone. He added: “Some of these companies will fail. We expect the successful ones to attract large amounts of traditional capital investments as they are demonstrated and deployed.”
Over the next year, the coalition will analyse potential investments and expand the pool of investors.