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European Commission commits a further €3bn of funding to support REPowerEU
By Charlie Currie
on Nov 03, 2022
https://www.h2-view.com/story/european-commission-commits-a-further-e3bn-of-funding-to-support-repowereu/

The European Commission today (November 3) revealed it is launching a third call for large-scale projects under the EU Innovation Fund, with a budget of €3bn ($2.9bn) to support the priorities in the REPowerEU Plan.

Set to fund projects under four categories; general decarbonisation; innovative electrification in industry and hydrogen; clean tech manufacturing; and mid-sized projects, the Commission hopes to provide additional support in a further bid to end the EU’s reliance on Russian fossil fuels.

Under general decarbonisation, €1bn has been set aside to fund projects in renewable energy, energy-intensive industries, energy storage or carbon capture, use and storage, as well as products substituting carbon-intensive alternatives such as low-carbon transport fuels.

In line with comments from the European Commission Executive Vice-President, Frans Timmermans at European Hydrogen Week, where he said, “Since Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, hydrogen also has to play a key role in our energy transition,” the Commission has designated €1bn for projects in electrification methods to replace fossil fuel use in industry, as well as renewable hydrogen production, or its uptake in industry.

A further €0.7bn will look to fund the manufacturing of components as well as final equipment for electrolysers, fuel cells, renewable energy, energy storage, and heat pumps, while €0.3bn is planned to be awarded to disruptive and breakthrough technologies for deep decarbonisation in all sectors.

Commenting on the launch, Timmermans, said, “Today more than ever, we need to boost innovation and scale up technological solutions that tackle the climate crisis and bring Europe energy sovereignty.

“The faster we do so, the quicker we will become immune to Russian energy blackmail. With this new call of €3bn, the EU Innovation Fund will support even more clean tech projects than before, speeding up the replacement of fossil fuels in hard-to-decarbonise industries and accelerating the uptake of renewable hydrogen in the EU market.”

The REPowerEU Plan was unveiled in May (2022), setting the target of producing 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen domestically by 2030, while importing a further 10 million tonnes by the same date.

According to the European Commission, projects will be assessed by independent evaluators according to their level of innovation, emissions reduction potential, operation, financial and technical maturity, scaling up potential, and cost efficiency.

H2 View understands the call for projects will be open for projects located in EU member states, as well as Iceland and Norway until March 16, 2023.