On 3^rd November, the third Innovation Fund’s call for large-scale projects was launched, with an overall budget of EUR 3 billion over four topics. Under this call, only projects with a total capital expenditure above EUR 7.5 million will be eligible.

The deadline for submitting project proposals is 16 March 2023. The evaluation results are expected in July-August 2023 and the Grant Agreement signature in December 2023.

The Innovation Fund is the EU funding programme for the demonstration of innovative low-carbon technologies for energy generation, energy storage, carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCU & CCS), and energy-intensive industries. It is funded through the EU Emission Trading System (EU ETS) and is expected to mobilise approximately EUR 38 billion over the period 2020-2030, though the actual figure will depend on the price of the EU ETS allowances.

The new call covers four topics:

• General decarbonisation (budget EUR 1 billion), including activities that help stimulate the construction and operation of innovative renewable energy and energy storage technologies.
• Innovative electrification in industry and hydrogen (budget EUR 1 billion).
• Clean-tech manufacturing (budget EUR 700 million), including the construction and operation of manufacturing facilities to produce components for renewable energy installations (e.g. solar thermal) and their connection to the electricity/heat grid.
• Mid-sized pilots (budget EUR 300 million) to support highly innovative, disruptive or breakthrough technologies.

There are five key award criteria, with a different weight depending on the topic:

• Degree of innovation (beyond incremental innovation)
• GHG emission avoidance potential
• Project maturity (technical, financial, and operational)
• Scalability (both in terms of efficiency gains and/or further deployment)
• Cost efficiency

Furthermore, bonus points can be attributed based on:

• Net carbon removals
• Other GHG savings (going beyond the Innovation Fund methodology for the given sector)
• Commitment to use electricity from additional renewable sources (for projects using significant amounts of electricity from the grid)

To learn more about this call, you can join the Infodays on 29-30 November, organised by CINEA (European Climate, Infrastructure, and Environment Executive Agency) and DG CLIMA.

More info on the Call: Large-scale calls (europa.eu)