Innovation Fund to have 4 billion euros available

The Innovation Fund call will provide ¤4 billion to bring innovative decarbonisation technologies to Europe.

Categories of the Innovation Fund

With a deadline of 9 April 2024, the Innovation Fund has doubled its budget compared to the previous call, allowing applications in five different categories:

• Pilot Projects: 200 million for projects with an emphasis on deep decarbonisation and a CAPEX of more than ¤2.5 million.
• Clean technology manufacturing: ¤1.4 billion for projects with a CAPEX of more than ¤2.5 million, with an emphasis on manufacturing components for renewable energy, energy storage, heat pumps and hydrogen production.
• Small-scale general decarbonisation: 200 million euros for projects with a CAPEX between 2.5 and 20 million euros.
• General medium-scale decarbonisation: projects with a CAPEX of between EUR 20 million and EUR 100 million will have a budget of EUR 500 million.
• Large-scale general decarbonisation: EUR 1.7 billion will be available for projects with a CAPEX of more than EUR 100 million.

Eligible projects

• Innovation Fund 2023 Net Zero Technologies – Manufacturing: Construction and operation of manufacturing facilities to produce specific components for:
  • Renewable energy installations, including their connection to the electricity/heat grid.
  • Electrolysers and fuel cells.
  • Energy storage solutions covering both batteries and other storage solutions for stationary and mobile use for intra-day and long duration storage.
    • Heat pumps.
    • Only projects with a total capital expenditure above EUR 2.500.000 are eligible under this topic.

• Net Zero Technologies – General decarbonisation – Small-Scale Projects:
  • Activities supporting innovation in low-carbon technologies and processes in sectors listed in Annex I and Annex III to the EU ETS Directive 2003/87, including environmentally safe carbon capture and utilisation (CCU)
  • Activities helping stimulate the construction and operation of projects that aim at the environmentally safe capture and geological storage of CO2 (CCS)
  • Activities helping the construction and operation of innovative renewable energy and energy storage technologies
  • Only projects with a total capital expenditure above EUR 2 500 000 and up to
  • EUR 20 000 000 are eligible under this topic.

• Net Zero Technologies – General decarbonisation – Medium-Scale Projects
  • Activities supporting innovation in low-carbon technologies and processes in sectors listed in Annex I and Annex III to the EU ETS Directive 2003/87 , including environmentally safe carbon capture and utilisation (CCU)
  • Activities helping stimulate the construction and operation of projects that aim at the environmentally safe capture and geological storage of CO2 (CCS)
  • Activities helping the construction and operation of innovative renewable energy and energy storage technologies
  • Only projects with a total capital expenditure above EUR 20 000 000 and up to EUR 100 000 000 are eligible under this topic.

• Net Zero Technologies – Pilots
  • Construction and operation of pilot projects that focus on validating, testing and optimising highly innovative, deep decarbonisation solutions in all sectors eligible for Innovation Fund support.
  • Pilot projects can thus concern: sectors listed in Annex I and Annex III to the EU ETS Directive 2003/87, including environmentally safe carbon capture and utilisation (CCU)
  • Only projects with a total capital expenditure above EUR 2 500 000 are eligible under this topic.
  • Innovation Fund 2023 Auction – RFNBO HydrogenInstallation of new RFNBO hydrogen capacity (i.e. hydrogen production capacity for which at the time of the grant application the start of works did not yet take place) as well as the verified and certified production of RFNBO hydrogen from those installations (in kg of produced volume) for a period of up to 10 years.
  • Only projects with a minimum installed capacity of the electrolyser of at least 5 MWe will be eligible.

• Net Zero Technologies – General decarbonisation – Large-Scale Projects
  • Activities supporting innovation in low-carbon technologies and processes in sectors listed in Annex I and Annex III to the EU ETS Directive 2003/87, including environmentally safe carbon capture and utilisation (CCU)
  • Activities helping stimulate the construction and operation of projects that aim at the environmentally safe capture and geological storage of CO2 (CCS)
  • Activities helping the construction and operation of innovative renewable energy and energy storage technologies
  • Only projects with a total capital expenditure above EUR 100 000 000 are eligible under this topic.

Eligible costs of the Innovation Fund

The grant distribution will be in a LUMP-SUM contribution:

• The portion of the grant amount budgeted until the financial close must not exceed 40% of the maximum grant amount.
• The portion of the grant amount budgeted after entry into operation should amount to at least 10% of the maximum grant amount.
• The maximum grant amount will only be paid out, if over the entire project duration, the project reaches at least 75% of the total amount of GHG emission planned to be avoided and if all other claims made in the application, in particular with regard to the degree of innovation and replicability, are fulfilled.

With FI Group as your trusted partner, you can navigate your way through the changing landscape of R&D funding and make the most of the incentives available.

Teresa Marina