3rd Call For Small Projects Under EU Innovation Fund

• EU has invited small scale low-carbon projects for its €100 million grant funding under Innovation Fund
• It will be available to projects in renewable energy and other industries that have a capex of between €2.5 million and €7.5 million
• Projects can win up to 60% of their total capex to help them achieve commercialization

The European Commission has issued the 3^rd call for small scale projects under the Innovation Fund with a budget to award €100 million grant funding for small-scale projects in renewable energy, decarbonization of energy-intensive industries, energy storage, and carbon capture, use and storage areas.

The 3 main conditions that can qualify projects for this funding are:

• strong potential to achieve GHG emission reductions compared to conventional technologies
• sufficiently mature financially, technically and operationally on cost-efficiency level so as to be scaled up, and
• have a capital expenditure between €2.5 million and €7.5 million.

Winning facilities in any EU member state, Iceland or Norway stand to secure up to 60% of their total capex.

Through this funding, the EC says, pioneering innovative technologies can overcome the risks usually linked to commercialization and enter the market.

"Inovation is a key part of our green transition. There are many technologies under development that will help us reduce our emissions and drive jobs and growth in Europe," said Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal, Frans Timmermans. "The Innovation Fund helps bring these technologies to market. The innovative small-scale projects that we are looking for today can revolutionize how entire industries operate tomorrow."

A total of 20 promising projects that are not yet sufficiently mature stand a chance to receive project development assistance (PDA) from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

Call launched on March 30, 2023 is open for entries till September 19, 2023. Details are available on the commission's website.  

Innovation Fund is funded by revenues from the auctioning of emission allowances from the EU's Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and supports next-generation of low-carbon technologies to support climate neutrality ambition.

In the 1^st call, 30 projects won a total of €109 million grant. The 2^nd call has 17 projects up for €62 million grant award.

Under the Innovation Fund, EU also awards large-scale projects with a capital expenditure of over €7.5 million for which the 3^rd call was launched in November 2022. A total of 239 applications were received for this round that are to be evaluated further (see €3 Billion For Innovative Clean Tech Projects In EU).