The European Commission has selected 85 Net Zero projects to receive €4.8bn in grants from the Innovation Fund – the largest since the fund started four years ago.
Selected projects cover 18 countries (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden and Norway) and range of sectors including energy-intensive industries, renewable energy, energy storage, industrial carbon Management, Net Zero mobility (including maritime and aviation) and buildings.
They will start operation before 2030 and over their first ten years of operation are expected to reduce emissions by about 476 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent.
This will contribute to European decarbonisation objectives, reducing emissions from hard-to-abate sectors, strengthen European industrial manufacturing capacity and reinforce Europe’s technology leadership and supply chain resilience.
Clean tech projects will develop, build and operate manufacturing plants for key components in wind and solar energy and for heat pumps, as well as components for electrolysers, fuel cells, energy storage technologies and the batteries value chain.
Those in energy-intensive industries will target renewable energy integration, heat and energy storage solutions, recycling and reuse, as well as electrification, while projects under industrial carbon management will capture CO2 and contribute 13% of the NZIA target of storing at least 50 million tonnes of CO2 per year from various hard-to-abate sources in energy-intensive industries, such as cement and lime, (bio)-refineries, chemicals and waste-to-energy.
Renewable hydrogen projects will deliver 61 kilotonnes of RFNBO (renewable fuel of non-biological origin) annually, contributing to increase the use and production of renewable energy in hydrogen in hard-to-abate applications in industry and transport.
Maroš Šefčovič, Executive Vice-President for European Green Deal, Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight, said the funding marked a “pivotal stride” towards Europe’s climate neutrality goals.
Wopke Hoekstra, Commissioner For Climate Action and responsible for transport, said, “The Fund is once again demonstrating how the EU ETS is a great tool in reducing emissions, and funding the projects we need to build a climate-neutral and competitive Europe.”
In addition to the 85 projects selected for funding, other promising but insufficiently mature projects will receive project development assistance from the European Investment Bank.
All 149 projects that scored above all Innovation Fund evaluation thresholds (including 64 non-funded projects) are awarded the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) Seal, the EU’s new quality label.
