The European Commission is investing €4.8 billion of emissions trading revenues into net-zero projects in the latest round of the EU Innovation Fund.
The total represents the largest amount designated since the fund was established in 2020, bringing the total amount of support to date to €12 billion.
Eighty-five projects from 18 EU Member States, including Estonia and Slovakia for the first time, have been invited to prepare grants. These projects were chosen from a 2023 call for proposals, which received 337 applications, of which 283 were deemed eligible and evaluated.
These include a floating solar power plant in Belgium, a solar thermal plant and storage facility for the malting industry in Croatia, and a 1.5 GW heterojunction PV module factory in Spain, which will be developed by Trina Solar’s subsidiary Trina Solar (Luxembourg) Holdings.
A statement from the European Commission said the latest round of financing will contribute to a total of 3 GW of solar energy production capacity.
Other projects will build heat pump manufacturing plants, as well as components for electrolyzers, fuel cells, energy storage technologies and the battery value chain. For the first time, projects of different sizes as well as pilot projects have been included in the list. A range of sectors are represented, including energy-intensive industries, net-zero mobility, including maritime and aviation, and buildings.
The selected applicants should sign their grant agreements in the first quarter of 2025, while the completed projects should be in operation by 2030.
The European Commission said promising but insufficiently mature projects will receive project development support from the European Investment Bank.
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