EU Innovation Fund

Über EU Innovation Fund

The EU Innovation Fund is funded through the auctioning of emissions allowances under the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). Therefore, the total budget for the Fund is dependent on the fluctuating carbon prices. Currently, the expected total budget for 2020-2030 is €25 billion.

Possibilities

The Innovation Fund manages two calls: Large Scale Projects with a total cost over €7.5 million and Small-Scale Projects with a total cost of less than €7.5M.
The grants cover up to 60% of the capital and operational costs and up to 40% of the grant can be payed based on pre-defined milestones before the project is operational.

In addition, the European Investment Bank will provide project development assistance (PDA).

Eligibility and award criteria

The EU Innovation Fund have established 5 themes that they want to support:

• Innovative low-carbon technologies and processes in energy-intensive industries, including products substituting carbon-intensive ones.
• Carbon capture and utilization (CCU)
• Construction and operation of carbon capture and storage (CCS)
• Innovative renewable energy generation
• Energy storage

Legal persons, private entities and/or public entities are eligible to apply. Projects will be selected based on:

• Effectiveness of greenhouse gas emissions avoidance
• Degree of innovation
• Project maturity
• Scalability
• Cost efficiency