What will the Innovation Fund 2024 General Call finance?

Budget: 2.4 billion EUR

Small-scale projects call window: budget 100 000 000 EUR

‘small-scale project’ means a project with a total capital expenditure not exceeding EUR 20 000 000 but larger than EUR 2 500 000

Link: EU Funding & Tenders Portal | EU Funding & Tenders Portal

Medium-scale projects call window budget: 200 000 000 EUR

‘medium-scale project’ means a project with a total capital expenditure above EUR 20 000 000 and not exceeding 100 000 000

 Link: EU Funding & Tenders Portal | EU Funding & Tenders Portal

Large-scale projects call window budget: 1 200 000 000 EUR

‘large-scale project’ refers to a project with a total capital expenditure above 100 000 000 EUR

Link: EU Funding & Tenders Portal | EU Funding & Tenders Portal

Clean tech manufacturing call window budget 700 000 000 EUR

The capital expenditure for such projects must be greater than 2 500 000 EUR

Link: EU Funding & Tenders Portal

Pilot projects call window budget 200 000 000 EUR

The capital expenditure for such projects must be greater than 2 500 000 EUR

Link: EU Funding & Tenders Portal

Activities that can be financed under the large-, medium-, and small-scale projects topics:

• 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

The clean-tech manufacturing topic finances the manufacturing of innovative clean-tech components for hydrogen production/consumption, renewable energy and energy storage.

The pilot projects topics financing the 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.

 (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)

 A 1 billion EUR call has also been dedicated to the manufacturing of batteries for Electric Vehicles (innovation can be in chemicals, life cycle, sustainability, et cetera). The project CAPEX must be greater than 2 500 000 EUR.

 Link: EU Funding & Tenders Portal | EU Funding & Tenders Portal.  

The Innovation Fund grant must not exceed 60% of the relevant costs. Relevant costs refers to the net extra costs, calculated as the difference between the best estimate of (i) the economic costs (covering investment and operation) and (ii) the economic revenues and operational benefits– known as the ‘No Reference Plant Methodology’ (taken as default).

More specifically, the Relevant Costs shall be calculated using the best estimate of the undiscounted total eligible Project capital expenditure (CAPEX) and the Net Present Value (NPV) 1 of the eligible Project Revenues, Operational Benefits, Maintenance CAPEX, and Operational Costs (OPEX), arising over the first ten years of the Project’s operation. This is the default methodology for all Projects

There is also the fall-back option of ‘Reference Plant Methodology’.

 Link: relevant-cost-methodology_innovfund_en.pdf

Eligibility

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

• be legal entities (public or private bodies)
• be established in one of the eligible countries: any country in the world

Projects must be located in EU Member States or EEA countries (i.e. Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein).

Projects may also be located in Northern Ireland on the condition that they concern the generation, transmission, distribution or supply of electricity.

For maritime sector project, please refer to the call text.

Examples of Innovation Fund successful projects: Innovation Fund projects per country - European Commission

Funds and Programmes Division (FPD) as the National Contact Point urges interested applicants to thoroughly read the respective call text.

Recordings of information sessions can be found here: Innovation Fund 2024 Call and Battery Info Day - European Commission

Information source: FPD