The European Commission has selected 65 projects under the EU’s ‘Innovation Fund Heat Auction’, the first ever EU-wide auction to accelerate the deployment of innovative clean heat technologies across European industry.
Across 10 European Economic Area countries – Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain – the projects will use a wide range of technologies to decarbonise industrial heat production, and accelerate the market uptake of electrified heat solutions and of heat produced directly from renewable sources.
The selected projects, with their use of innovative technologies, will avoid more than 6.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions over 10 years by replacing natural gas-fuelled heat production systems. Together they are expected to produce around 16.3 terawatt-hours (TWh) of decarbonised heat over their first 5 years of operation, based on a thermal capacity of 766 megawatts (MW). This is equivalent to replacing over 1.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas over five years, roughly comparable to the annual consumption of 4 million EU households.
The projects will receive a total amount of around €400 million in grants from the EU’s Innovation Fund. The money is coming from the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS).
Selected Projects
Projects have a wide range of technology and sector portfolios. Most projects rely on direct resistance heating or indirect resistance heating. Others include technologies such as heat pumps, solar thermal, electromagnetic and dielectric heating, and hybrid technologies.
In terms of industrial off-taker sectors, projects cover pulp and paper, as well as glass, ceramics and construction materials and iron and steel, which are sectors that have so far been less represented in the Innovation Fund portfolio. Other sectors that benefit from the Heat Auction are food and beverage, textiles and pharmaceuticals.
The auction was structured around three ‘topics’, based on temperature level and installation capacity:
- 5 projects are invited under the high-temperature heat topic, amounting to €62.1 million in support
- 44 projects are invited under the medium-temperature heat topic above 5 MW capacity, with a total budget of €286.5 million
- 16 projects are invited under the medium-temperature heat topic with 3-5MW capacity, with a total of €47.9 million.
The European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) will now begin the formal preparation of grant agreements with the selected projects.
This process will confirm the final conditions for financial support. Grant Agreements are expected to be signed in the second half of 2026.
