EIB and Commerzbank launch new cooperation for €2 billion in grid investments in Europe

This article is published in association with European Investment Bank.

• The new guarantee from the European Investment Bank (EIB) will help secure further financing to expand electricity grids in Germany and other EU countries.
• The cooperation will strengthen supply chains for grid components and accelerate the energy transition by increasing investment in electricity grids.
• Signed at Hannover Messe, the agreement highlights the importance of robust power grids for households and the economy.

The EIB and Commerzbank signed a new cooperation agreement at Hannover Messe that will enable investments of up to €2 billion in electricity grids in Germany and other EU Member States.

The cooperation will address key financing bottlenecks for grid expansion and upgrades, which are crucial for integrating renewable energy and reducing energy costs for businesses and households.

To achieve this, the EIB is providing Commerzbank with a guarantee of €250 million, which in turn enables Commerzbank to offer more guarantees for component manufacturers. This will help strengthen supply chains for cables, transformers and other equipment, and mobilise grid investments totalling up to €2 billion.

Neil Aiken, Divisional Board Member Lending at Commerzbank, said: “As a leading bank for German SMEs and a key energy industry partner, we see every day how large the investment and financing needs for grid infrastructure are. The EIB guarantee strengthens our capacity to address these needs and helps ensure a secure, affordable and sustainable energy supply in Germany and across Europe.”

EIB Vice‑President Nicola Beer said: “With this new partnership, we are creating sorely needed room for manoeuvre in accelerating the expansion of Europe’s electricity grids and making them fit for a climate‑neutral energy system. Without efficient grids, wind turbines, solar panels and heat pumps go unused – we would miss the energy transition, literally sitting in gridlock. Our cooperation with Commerzbank will support investments of up to €2 billion in new lines, transformers and smart infrastructure, make the energy supply more resilient, and help reduce energy costs for people and businesses in the long term.”

Clear and growing need to expand EU power grids

The energy transition is increasingly localised in the electricity grid – especially lower voltage levels, into which much of the electricity from renewable sources will be fed in future. Grid operators anticipate a sharp rise in investment for grid expansion by 2030, and a clear majority expect spending on this to increase substantially.

Huge amounts of materials will be required to meet the need: By 2045, it’s estimated that Germany’s grids will need more than half a million additional kilometres of cables and transformers. Investment projections for the German electricity grids by 2045 total around €431 billion – that’s around €20 billion per year, almost four times the amount in 2022.

At the same time, operating costs are rising significantly due to grid bottlenecks and system interventions. In 2023 alone, more than 27 000 GWh of electricity had to be balanced through redispatching, costing around €3.2 billion. Bringing these costs down in the long term will take not just physical grid expansion on a massive scale, but also increased digitalisation and intelligent control across the grid.

Operators see digitalisation, smart grids and intelligent metering systems as key to increasing transparency and controllability, and to improving how existing grids are utilised. Among other things, they expect greater transparency on consumption and feed‑in, better integration of new load sources like heat pumps and e‑mobility, and more efficient maintenance of infrastructure.

How the EIB backs Commerzbank financing for the grid

The cooperation will take place under a new EIB Grid Package that supports financing for electricity grids and storage by strengthening European supply chains for grid equipment.

For that, the EIB is providing Commerzbank with a portfolio guarantee of up to €250 million, covering up to 50% of the risk arising from performance and advance payment guarantees for equipment manufacturers.

These guarantees are standard in grid construction to protect operators and development firms against the risk of supplier failure to complete projects in accordance with contracts, or to deliver against advance payments. As Europe’s market for grid components is dominated by a handful of large original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and only a few banks offer such guarantees, institutions are increasingly running up against regulatory risk and concentration limits.

The EIB guarantee lets Commerzbank partly share out its risk exposure to OEMs, free up regulatory capital and provide more guarantees. This increases financing capacity for new lines, substations, transformers and cable connections in Germany and other Member States, for faster implementation of expansion projects.

“With the new EIB Grid Package, we are transferring the successful risk‑sharing model from our wind package to the electricity grid,” Beer said. “We are helping banks like Commerzbank meet the swiftly rising demand for guarantees in the grid sector, making a real contribution to REPowerEU and the European Green Deal.”

One part of a broader EIB initiative for power grids and wind

The new cooperation with Commerzbank is the first transaction under the pan‑European EIB Grid Package, which will enable investments in numerous electricity grid projects across the European Union. Each operation under this programme helps mobilise additional grid investments of up to €4 billion, while also strengthening the industrial base for grid equipment in Europe.

The EIB Grid Package builds on an existing initiative for the wind energy value chain, under which the EIB and partner institutions like Commerzbank are already providing risk mitigation for wind turbine manufacturers. Commerzbank is a partner in that wind initiative as well as in the Growth for Energy programme, which supports financing for the energy transition and grid transformation at the municipal level.

The EIB knows that stronger power grids are a key prerequisite for keeping EU industry competitive, digitalising the economy and ensuring that all consumers have access to clean, affordable energy. By linking grid expansion, digitalisation and resilient supply chains, the new cooperation with Commerzbank will help Europe’s energy supply withstand crises and reduce price spikes in the long term.

Background information

EIB Group

The European Investment Bank (EIB) Group is the financing arm of the European Union, owned by the 27 Member States, and one of the largest multilateral development banks in the world. In 2025, the EIB Group signed €100 billion in new financing and advisory services for over 870 high-impact projects under eight core priorities that support EU policy objectives: climate action and the environment, digitalisation and technological innovation, security and defence, territorial cohesion, agriculture and the bioeconomy, social infrastructure, strong global partnerships and the savings and investments union. Beyond long-term loans for large infrastructure, the EIB Group crowds in private investment for high-risk innovative projects and businesses, with a growing role in Europe’s markets for venture debt, venture capital, guarantees and securitisations. 

The European Investment Fund (EIF) is the subsidiary of the EIB Group specialised in providing guarantees and equity to improve access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses and startups across Europe. Acting as an anchor investor, through its extensive network of partnering banks and investment funds, the EIF mobilises private investment and nurtures the ecosystem of venture capital funds to support innovative European entrepreneurs. 

In 2023, the EIF together with six Member States (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands) launched the European Tech Champions Initiative, a fund-of-funds to scale up innovative startups. To date, this initiative has already enabled the creation of 14 European venture capital mega-funds and scaled up 40 companies, including 11 unicorns (with more than €1 billion in capital). 
Photos of the EIB Group’s representatives and headquarters, logo files and video B-roll for media use are available here.  

InvestEU

The InvestEU programme provides the European Union with long-term funding by leveraging substantial private and public funds in support of a sustainable recovery. It also helps crowd in private investment for the European Union’s strategic priorities such as the European Green Deal and the digital transition. InvestEU brings all EU financial instruments previously available for supporting investments within the European Union together under one roof, making funding for investment projects in Europe simpler, more efficient and more flexible. The programme consists of three components: the InvestEU Fund, the InvestEU Advisory Hub and the InvestEU Portal. The InvestEU Fund is deployed through implementing partners that will invest in projects using the EU budget guarantee of €26.2 billion. The entire budget guarantee will back the investment projects of the implementing partners, increase their risk-bearing capacity and thus mobilise at least €372 billion in additional investment.