On the 25th June, the European Commission Directorate on Climate organised a workshop with solar stakeholders to present the Innovation Fund. The fund is today one of the largest funding programmes for demonstration of innovative projects in the field of decarbonisation, and it will focus, among others, on renewable energy generation and energy storage. The Innovation Fund aims at creating the right financial incentives to foster innovation, boost growth and competitiveness of European companies, and allow low-carbon technologies to be further deployed and accessible in the market.
The workshop was also the occasion to listen to some innovative projects from companies in the solar sector and exchange views, challenges and ideas on how to shape the first calls of the Fund foreseen for 2020. Representatives from the Solar Thermal, Solar PV and Concentrate Solar Power attended a restricted meeting with officials from the European Commission.
According to DG CLIMA (the directorate in charge of managing the Fund) innovative projects will receive up to 60% refund on additional costs (on capex and/or opex) and the selection will be done through a list of comprehensive criteria including: GHG avoided, innovation of the project, maturity, scalability and cost effectiveness. The two-stage application will also allow promising projects which are not mature or scalable enough to get project development assistance from the Commission.
The workshop was part of a series of meeting which the Commission is conducting with stakeholders from different sectors to get a more comprehensive overview. For further information contact us at info@solarheateurope.eu
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