Innovation Fund: EU invests 1.8 billion euro in clean tech projects

EU is investing over 1.8 billion euro in 17 large-scale innovative clean-tech projects with a third round of awards under the Innovation Fund.

Grants will be disbursed from the Innovation Fund to help bring breakthrough technologies to the market in energy-intensive industries, hydrogen, renewable energy, carbon capture and storage infrastructure, and manufacturing of key components for energy storage and renewables. The selected projects are located in Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Sweden.

Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans said: “Today’s grants support innovative businesses across Europe to develop the cutting-edge technologies we need to drive the green transition. The Innovation Fund is an important tool to scale up innovations in renewable hydrogen and other solutions for European industry. Compared to the first disbursement round, the funds available have increased by 60%, enabling us to double the number of projects supported. This is a big boost for the decarbonisation of energy-intensive industry in the European Union.”

The 17 projects were selected under the second call for large-scale projects, meaning they have capital costs above €7.5 million. The projects were evaluated by independent experts based on their ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional technologies and to innovate beyond the state-of-the-art, while being sufficiently mature for deployment. Other selection criteria included the projects’ potential for scalability and cost effectiveness.

The selected projects cover a wide range of sectors contributing to the EU’s decarbonisation efforts such as production, distribution and use of green hydrogen, waste-to-hydrogen, offshore wind, manufacturing of photovoltaic (PV) modules, battery storage and recycling, carbon capture and storage, sustainable aviation fuels, and advanced biofuels. Together, they have a potential to save 136 million tonnes of CO2eq over their first 10 years of operation.

In addition, up to 20 projects that are promising but not yet sufficiently mature for a grant will be pre-selected for project development assistance by the European Investment Bank. These will be announced in the fourth quarter of 2022..

More, here: EU invests €1.8 billion in clean tech projects (europa.eu)