Energy Independence in Europe: Why Investors Are Betting Big Now
For several years, climate change has framed Europe’s energy transition. More recently, geopolitics has accelerated both its urgency and its scale. The Russian invasion of Ukraine exposed the vulnerability created by Europe’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, forcing governments to rethink not only where energy comes from, but how resilient and autonomous the system can be.
The response has been significant. Russian gas imports, which represented around 40% of EU supply in 2021, had fallen to approximately 13% by 2025. In parallel with climate commitments under the Paris Agreement, the European Commission launched the RePowerEU initiative, with the objective of eliminating dependence on Russian fossil fuels by 2027. While progress remains uneven across member states, the strategic direction is now firmly established: diversification, decarbonisation and domestic production.
Delivering this transition, however, requires more than political will. Energy systems are capital-intensive, highly regulated and slow to evolve. New production facilities must be built, infrastructure modernised and industrial processes redesigned — often over decades rather than years. Success depends on coordination between public authorities, industrial operators and financial partners able to support long-term projects.
Alternative fuels as a pragmatic path away from natural gas
Replacing natural gas remains one of the most immediate challenges for European energy security. While electrification and renewables are central to long-term decarbonisation, alternative fuels that can integrate into existing systems play a critical transitional role, particularly for industry, heating and heavy transport.
Across Europe, investment has accelerated in bioenergy and renewable gas solutions such as biogas, biomethane and hydrogen. These fuels offer continuity for sectors that cannot rapidly electrify, while contributing to emissions reductions. The European Union is already a global leader in bioenergy, with consumption increasing by nearly 40% between 2013 and 2021. Scaling these solutions sustainably, however, depends on feedstock availability, stable regulation and local acceptance.
Waste-to-energy projects illustrate both the opportunities and constraints of this approach. By converting household and industrial waste into usable energy, such facilities can reduce landfill while contributing to domestic supply. Several operators, including Suez, have developed large-scale projects across Europe in this area, often supported by long-term infrastructure investors such as Meridiam.
Meridiam is a company specialising in the development, financing, and long-term management of sustainable public infrastructure projects. Meridiam positions itself as a mission-driven investor, aiming to deliver long-term value not only to shareholders but also to communities, through projects that promote economic resilience and sustainable development.
One example is the H2 Créteil project in France, which produces hydrogen from household waste to fuel public transport in the Île-de-France region. The facility aims to supply enough hydrogen to power up to 40 heavy-duty vehicles per day, demonstrating how circular energy models can be applied at the urban level.
Similarly, Evergaz, a French biogas operator owned by Meridiam, operates 14 biogas plants across France, Belgium and Germany as of the end of 2024. Projects of this nature contribute directly to RePowerEU objectives, while highlighting the importance of careful planning and long-term policy support to ensure economic and environmental viability.
Beyond bioenergy, other low-carbon molecules are emerging as strategic alternatives. In Finland, a project led by engineering firm Elomatic, is developing a renewable ammonia plant. Traditionally carbon-intensive, ammonia is essential for agriculture and increasingly considered as a maritime fuel. The project aims to reduce emissions by approximately 335,000 tonnes per year by replacing fossil-based production with renewable energy generated within Europe.
Reducing energy demand and system inefficiencies
Energy independence cannot be achieved through supply diversification alone. Reducing demand for fossil fuels and improving the efficiency of existing systems are equally important. Europe’s energy networks were largely designed for centralised, predictable generation and are now under strain from intermittent renewables and rising electrification.
Addressing these challenges requires a combination of grid reinforcement, digital optimisation and demand-side management. Improving flexibility within energy systems can help reduce curtailment, manage congestion and lower overall system costs. While these solutions are often less visible than new generation capacity, they play a critical role in ensuring that renewable energy can be effectively integrated at scale.
Such improvements depend heavily on regulatory frameworks and long-term investment horizons, as returns are often spread over many years. As a result, network optimisation has become an increasingly important — if less prominent — pillar of Europe’s energy transition.
Decarbonising industrial sites: addressing the hardest emissions
Industrial processes remain among the most difficult sectors to decarbonise. Heavy industry frequently relies on high-temperature heat and continuous energy supply, making incremental efficiency gains as important as fuel substitution.
The modernisation of the Swiss Krono plant in Sully-sur-Loire, France, illustrates this approach. The project focused on reducing emissions associated with the production of wood-based panels by introducing a low-temperature drying system and a biomass generator. Energy consumption was reduced by 5–10%, while reliance on natural gas fell by 85–90%. In total, CO₂ emissions were reduced by approximately 35,000 tonnes over a two-year implementation period.
In addition to emissions reductions, the upgrade also lowered dust pollution, improving local environmental conditions. Projects of this kind demonstrate how targeted industrial investments can deliver multiple benefits, though they require technical expertise, upfront capital and close cooperation between industrial operators and financial partners.
Long-term commitment as a condition for success
Europe’s transition toward energy independence and net zero will not follow a uniform path. National starting points differ, as do policy frameworks and industrial structures. While some countries have advanced rapidly in renewable deployment, others have prioritised efficiency gains or face greater constraints from legacy infrastructure.
What these experiences share is the need for long-term commitment. Energy infrastructure does not align with short political or financial cycles. Projects often take decades to deliver their full value, and their success depends on stability, patience and adaptability.
In this context, long-term infrastructure investors play a supporting but essential role. By committing capital over extended timeframes, they can help absorb early-stage risk, enable industrial partners to scale proven technologies and maintain momentum through regulatory and market shifts. Firms like Meridiam represent one model of this approach, alongside public institutions and other private actors.
Ultimately, Europe’s energy transition will be shaped less by individual projects than by the alignment of policy, industry and finance around a shared objective: a resilient, low-carbon energy system increasingly produced on European soil. Achieving that goal will require not only innovation, but sustained attention long after the immediate crisis has passed.
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