Eiffel Investment Group, an asset manager specialised in debt and equity financing, has announced that its Eiffel Energy Transition fund recently achieved its initial objective of EUR 200m in commitments. After just eight months of operation, the Eiffel Energy Transition fund has already put EUR 100m into 272 renewable energy projects, exceeding expectations and confirming its relevance.

Sébastien Lecornu, Secretary of State attached to the Minister of State, Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, hailed its success. “The Eiffel Energy Transition fund recently financed by ADEME (National Agency for the Environment and Energy Management) constitutes a decisive tool for rolling out renewable energies. It is in line with the 12 December summit – requested by the French President – mobilising new public-private financing tools to help combat climate change. The Government is working is parallel to overcome the technical and legal obstacles to the development of renewable energies – particularly wind energy – with a special working group that will deliver its conclusions in January 2018.”

The Commissariat Général à l’Investissement (Office of the Commissioner General for Investment), which has supported the fund project from the outset, is delivering on its commitment by investing EUR 40m under the Future Investment Programme. This investment, which comes in addition to that provided by the European Investment Bank (EIB), is being undertaken by ADEME. The commitment of the Commissariat Général à l’Investissement has helped to mobilise investment from ten large private institutional investors. Thierry Francq, Assistant Commissioner General for Investment, is happy with this “model partnership between the Government, EU and private sector, creating significant leverage for public financing to benefit the energy and environmental transition.”

The Eiffel Energy Transition fund offers a new financing solution to energy transition players by providing short-term loans. This solution is particularly useful for overcoming the delicate construction phase of a project before long-term financing takes over. It therefore enables renewable energy (solar, wind, biogas, biomass, etc.) developers and energy efficiency operators (thermal renovation of buildings, low-energy lighting, etc.) to accelerate their growth by allocating their funds to more projects.

The fund's other original feature is being able to incorporate a large number of small-scale projects (typically with a unit value of a few hundred thousand euros) in the solar energy and energy efficiency sectors, positioning itself upstream of traditional financiers (infrastructure funds and banks) that support larger-scale projects and portfolios. Focused on SMEs and midcaps in the sector, the fund therefore lifts the barriers to granular financing of the energy and environmental transition across the country