The European Commission has selected 85 innovative zero-emission projects that will receive €4.8 billion in grants from the European Innovation Fund.
This was announced on the official website of the highest executive body of the European Union.
The European Commission noted that this is the largest competition since the Innovation Fund was established in 2020. It increases the total amount of support to €12 billion, and the number of projects – by 70%.
The officials also said that for the first time in the framework of the 2023 competition, grants of various scales – large, medium, small, as well as pilot projects – will be awarded with an emphasis on environmentally friendly production. Projects that are promising but not mature enough at this stage will receive development assistance from the European Investment Bank.
How the selection took place
Independent experts evaluated the submitted projects according to 5 criteria:
- the potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions;
- degree of innovation;
- operational, financial and technical maturity;
- possibility of reproduction;
- economic efficiency.
The selected projects are located in 18 countries: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden and Norway.
They belong to the following categories:
- energy-intensive industries;
- renewable energy sources;
- energy storage;
- management of carbon emissions in industry;
- zero mobility (including sea and air transport);
- buildings
These projects should be commissioned by 2030. It is expected that in the first 10 years of operation, they will help reduce emissions by approximately 476 million tons in terms of CO2.
What will the winning projects spend the grants on
The selected projects will design, build and operate factories for the production of key components for wind and solar energy , heat pumps, as well as components for electrolyzers, fuel cells, energy storage technologies and the production and sales chain for batteries. They will contribute to the creation of 3 GW of production capacity for the production of solar photovoltaic systems and 9.3 GW of production capacity for the production of electrolyzers in the EU.
Also, the selected projects will support various technologies for reduction of net greenhouse gas emissions in energy-intensive industries, will help integrate renewable energy sources there, will implement solutions for heat and energy storage, recycling and reuse, as well as electrification.
Among the winning projects are those that will capture CO2 and contribute to NZIA's 13% target of sequestering at least 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from various non-absorbable sources in energy-intensive industries such as cement and lime production, (bio)-refineries, chemical industries and waste processing in energy
Several projects will be engaged renewable hydrogen. They should provide 61 kilotons of RFNBO (Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin) annually. This will contribute to increasing the use and production of renewable hydrogen energy in hard-to-reach industries and transport.
Grants were also awarded to projects involving the construction and modernization of vessels for the use of RFNBO fuel and electricity, as well as the reduction of emissions in the production of road transport components. There are winning projects that will promote production sustainable transport fuel . It is assumed that their successful implementation will allow the production of 525 kilotons of renewable fuel per year.
The European Commission will announce the next call for applications within the Innovation Fund at the beginning of December 2024.
The other day, EcoPolitic wrote about that the EU is investing more than €380 million in projects supporting the green transition.
