The European Innovation Fund stands out as a cornerstone in fostering cutting-edge innovations and sustainable solutions in the dynamic landscape of European funding. Established with a vision to support the European Union's commitment to a greener, more resilient future, Innovation Fund has become a beacon for entrepreneurs, researchers, and organizations seeking to bring transformative ideas to life.
The European Innovation Fund, as part of the EU’s broader environmental and innovation strategies, aims to catalyze significant advancements across various sectors. By providing crucial financial support and expertise, Innovation Fund enables projects that resource limitations might otherwise hinder to reach their full potential. This support is instrumental in bridging the gap between ambitious ideas and tangible, impactful realizations.
In this article, we’ll explore six calls from the Innovation Fund programme that were recently published. These calls exemplify the Innovation Fund’s commitment to innovation and sustainable development.
6 European Innovation Fund Open Calls for Sustainability
Innovation Fund 2023 Net Zero Technologies – Manufacturing
Deadline: 09/04/2024
Objective:
This topic supports projects for manufacturing innovative clean-tech components for hydrogen production/consumption, renewable energy and energy storage. The topic seeks to enhance Europe’s innovation and industrial capacity in clean tech manufacturing, including scale-up, its supply chain resilience and strategic autonomy in Europe.
Scope:
Construction and operation of manufacturing facilities to produce specific components for:
- renewable energy installations (in photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, on-shore and offshore wind power, ocean energy, geothermal, solar thermal, and others), 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.
Innovation Fund 2023 Net Zero Technologies – General decarbonisation – Small-Scale Projects.
Deadline: 09/04/2024
Scope:
The following activities can be funded under this topic:
- 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) that contributes substantially to mitigating climate change, in particular for unavoidable process emissions, as well as products substituting carbon-intensive ones produced in sectors listed in Annex I to the EU ETS Directive
- 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.
Innovation Fund 2023 Net Zero Technologies – General decarbonisation – Medium-Scale Projects
Deadline: 09/04/2024
Scope:
The following activities can be funded under this topic:
- 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) that contributes substantially to mitigating climate change, in particular for unavoidable process emissions, as well as products substituting carbon-intensive ones produced in sectors listed in Annex I to the EU ETS Directive
- 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.
Innovation Fund 2023 Net Zero Technologies – General decarbonisation – Large-Scale Projects
Deadline: 09/04/2024
The following activities can be funded under this topic:
- 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) that contributes substantially to mitigating climate change, in particular for unavoidable process emissions, as well as products substituting carbon-intensive ones produced in sectors listed in Annex I to the EU ETS Directive
- 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.
Innovation Fund 2023 Net Zero Technologies – Pilots
Deadline: 09/04/2024Objective:
The objective of this topic is to support highly innovative, disruptive or breakthrough technologies in deep decarbonisation needed for achieving the climate neutrality goal.
Scope:
The following activities can be funded under this topic:
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) that contributes substantially to mitigating climate change, as well as products substituting carbon-intensive ones produced in sectors listed in Annex I to the EU ETS Directive or construction and operation of innovative energy storage or construction and operation of CO2 storage solutions or construction and operation renewable energy installations (in photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, onshore and offshore wind power, ocean energy, geothermal, solar thermal, and others), including innovative systems aspects such as connection to the electricity/heat grid.
In this topic, a higher degree of innovation is expected than in the other topics. Consequently, the activities that can be funded are those that tackle technical risks linked to the innovative technologies and solutions, e.g. optimising process and operational parameters of the innovation, and/or improving the characteristics of the final products produced. Pilot projects should prove an innovative, deep decarbonisation or net carbon removal technology or solution in an operational environment, but are not expected yet to reach large scale demonstration or commercial production. Nevertheless, the project can entail limited production/operation for testing purposes, including delivery to/from potential customers for validation. Typically, these projects would have a limited life-time (3 to 5 years). If the project is successful, the proposed technology should move to the next stage of large-scale demonstration or first-of-a-kind commercial production.
Only projects with a total capital expenditure above EUR 2 500 000 are eligible under this topic.
The maximum amount of Innovation Fund grant for an individual project under this topic is limited to EUR 40 million.
Innovation Fund 2023 Auction - RFNBO Hydrogen
Deadline: 08/02/2024
Scope:
This call is an auction call, i.e. a call that is awarded based on a competitive bidding procedure on price and therefore subject to specific conditions (e.g. auction terms and conditions, fair bid conditions, completion guarantee, etc)
The present call is an auction call for renewable fuel of non-biological origin (RFNBO) hydrogen, as defined in the Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2021. The bid price is the requested unit contribution (fixed premium) per kg of RFNBO hydrogen production which will be paid for a maximum period of up to 10 years.
The following activities can be funded:
Installation 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.
Final Thoughts
Having explored these six open calls for proposals the European Innovation Fund that are open going into 2024, don't forget about the important functionalities that EUcalls provides.
Coming across a European call that piques your interest, remember that you can "declare your interest" on the top right of your screen inside the Eucalls platform. Doing so, let's others know of your interest in that specific call and that you are open to invitations. On the other hand, if you already have a project idea for a specific open call for proposals, you should share your EU project idea with IdeaPad. In there, you can also find other project ideas of organisations looking for partners to collaborate and create a consortium.
Register now to begin your European funding journey with calls from the Innovation Fund or any other EU funding programme. EUcalls is full of open calls for proposals from all available funding programmes. Do not miss the opportunity to fund your idea and see it happen.
For any further inquiries, don't hesitate to reach out to our dedicated team. You can contact us at info@eucalls.net, and our experts will be more than happy to assist you.
