EC launches 3rd call under Innovation Fund with EUR 3bn budget

European Commission headquarters in Brussels; Author: Radomir Ralev

The European Commission (EC) on Thursday opened the EUR-3-billion (USD 2.97bn) third call for grants under the EU Innovation Fund, targeting large-scale cleantech projects in a number of fields, including general decarbonisation through the use of renewables.

As of today, interested parties can participate in the call with projects located in EU Member States, Iceland and Norway. They should apply until March 16, 2023, and will be informed about the outcome of the evaluation in the second quarter of the year. The awards and the signing of the grants are scheduled to take place in the final quarter of 2023.

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The following table describes the type of projects that will be eligible for a grant.

Topic	Budget	Description
General decarbonisation	EUR 1bn	Innovative projects in renewable energy, energy-intensive industries, energy storage or carbon capture, use and storage
Innovative electrification in industry and hydrogen	EUR 1bn	Innovative electrification methods to replace fossil fuel use in industry, as well as green hydrogen production or hydrogen uptake in industry
Cleantech manufacturing	EUR 700m	Innovative ways to produce components and final equipment for electrolysers and fuel cells, renewable energy, energy storage and heat pumps
Mid-sized pilots	EUR 300m	Highly innovative disruptive or breakthrough technologies in deep decarbonisation in all eligible sectors of the Fund

In the prior two calls, grants with a total value of EUR 1.1 billion and EUR 1.8 billion were awarded to seven and 17 projects, respectively. The EC said that this time the overall budget has been doubled thanks to higher revenue from the auctioning of EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) allowances, which is the way the Innovation Fund is typically funded.

The commission pointed out that promising projects not sufficiently mature for a grant could get project development assistance from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

(EUR 1 = USD 0.991)