The Battery Investment Facility (BIF) is one of our proposed demonstrator solutions to help organisations at a critical point in their growth – when scaling operations – access capital.
The BIF seeks to bring together public and private capital to unlock investment into companies who can contribute to a successful battery supply chain. Public finance can be used to de-risk specific investments in key businesses in the supply chain for private sector financiers, which would otherwise sit outside of traditional risk appetite; serving to unlock funding for organisations to cross the “valley of death” and bridge the gap to mainstream funding.
The BIF has potential to support at different stages in the scale up journey: at an earlier stage where companies move from grant funding to mainstream finance, and at a later stage to unlock the larger scale capex companies need to start building out their operations. It could also apply to adjacent sectors including power electronics and hydrogen fuel cells.
Several options for the most impactful intervention of such a blended facility are being explored with key stakeholders including the creation of a specific battery sector fund using public capital as a cornerstone investment to crowd in private capital, revenue, and credit enhancement guarantees for individual deals, financial loss against construction risk, or first loss mechanisms to supplement the UK government’s investment in the battery sector.
You can find out more about the BIF demonstrator solution in our Powering the Drive to Net Zero report