Energy finance: first meeting of the new advisory council at the initiative of the IAE.

The International Energy Agency today held the first meeting of its new Finance Industry Advisory Board, bringing together 40 representatives of leading actors in the world of energy finance, including banks, asset managers and international financial institutions.

The IEA convened the new advisory board to enable a more structured dialogue with the energy finance community on a range of issues affecting energy investment, in particular as they relate to clean energy transitions.

“Successful and secure energy transitions depend not just on policy decisions and technological innovation, but also the mobilisation of huge amounts of investment capital – especially for clean energy projects in emerging and developing economies,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol, who opened today’s meeting. “This is a very dynamic area and I’m very pleased at the strong interest from the energy finance community in this new IEA initiative.”

At the meeting at the IEA headquarters in Paris, participants exchanged views on some of the main investment-related outputs planned by the IEA for 2023. These include the annual World Energy Investment report that tracks flows of capital into the energy sector; an upcoming joint report with the International Finance Corporation on scaling up private sector finance into clean energy projects in emerging and developing economies; the Cost of Capital Observatory that is run by the IEA and several partners; new analysis on clean energy finance in Africa that is being developed in cooperation with the African Development Bank; and planned analysis for the COP28 Climate Change Conference on the oil and gas industry in transitions to net zero emissions.

The Finance Industry Advisory Board joins other informal consultative bodies that the IEA has established for dialogue with important stakeholders, including the Energy Business Council, the Renewable Industry Advisory Board and others. 

The IEA has three main aims for the new initiative:

• To provide for a structured exchange of views on the main IEA analytical outputs relating to energy investment and finance. These include the annual World Energy Investment and investment-related aspects of the World Energy Outlook.
• To provide an institutional channel for dialogue between the energy finance community and energy policy makers, who meet regularly in various IEA committees and working groups, on the issues that affect flows of capital to the energy sector.
• To allow for regular exchanges on the use of IEA scenarios.