Renewable energy.
(BRUSSELS) – The European Union launched over EUR 1.8 billion of awards Tuesday to 17 large-scale innovative projects to bring breakthrough technologies to the market in energy-intensive industries.
Under its Innovation Fund, grants will be disbursed to help bring technologies to the market in hydrogen, renewable energy, carbon capture and storage infrastructure, and manufacturing of key components for energy storage and renewables.
The selected projects are located in nine countries: Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Sweden. They will cover a wide range of sectors contributing to the EU’s decarbonisation efforts such as production, distribution and use of green hydrogen, waste-to-hydrogen, offshore wind, manufacturing of photovoltaic (PV) modules, battery storage and recycling, carbon capture and storage, sustainable aviation fuels, and advanced biofuels. Together, they have a potential to save 136 million tonnes of CO2eq over their first 10 years of operation, says the Commission.
“Today’s grants support innovative businesses across Europe to develop the cutting-edge technologies we need to drive the green transition,” said EC vice-president Frans Timmermans: “The Innovation Fund is an important tool to scale up innovations in renewable hydrogen and other solutions for European industry [….] This is a big boost for the decarbonisation of energy-intensive industry in the European Union.”
The Commission is set to will launch the third call for large-scale projects in the autumn. As announced in the REPowerEU Plan, the funding available will be doubled to around 3 billion to further support the EU’s independence from Russian fossil fuels. In July 2021, the Commission proposed as part of the Fit for 55 package, to top up the Innovation Fund, currently sourced from 450 million allowances from the existing ETS in 2021-30, with 50 million allowances from the existing ETS and 150 million allowances from the new system covering emissions from road transport and buildings.
Project description of selected large-scale projects
Innovation Fund large-scale projects
