Innovation Fund

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The ‘Pilot Projects’ call under the Innovation Fund offers grants of up to €40m per project to support the demonstration of highly innovative technologies. It has a budget of €300m this year. Projects with CAPEX above €2.5m (no ceiling) are eligible, and deployments must take place in the EU/EEA area. Five ocean energy projects have been awarded since the introduction of the ‘Pilot Projects’ call in 2022.

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OEE engaged extensively with the Commission in 2022 to introduce a specific call for ‘Pilot Projects‘ and has since continued to push for its renewal. Five ocean energy projects have been awarded since its introduction. The ‘Pilot Projects’ call has been successfully renewed again this year, and its budget has been increased from €200M to €300M.

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The ‘Pilot Projects’ window supports the construction, operation of pilot projects that focuses on validation, testing and optimisation of highly innovative technologies. It has a budget of €200m shared between innovative renewables, CCS, storage and heavy industry with a max award of €40m. Two ocean energy projects have been awarded following the introduction of this new window last year.

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The EU Innovation Fund’s third call for small-scale projects is a funding programme for demonstration projects of highly innovative technologies, with a budget of €100m shared between innovative renewables, CCS, storage and heavy industries.

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Demonstration projects for highly innovative technologies that can bring on significant emission reductions. Only projects with a total capital expenditure between €2.5m and €7.5m are eligible.

The European Commission has a consultation on the future Innovation Fund. It is open until 7 March.

Previous OEE briefings identified an outstanding point of uncertainty for the ocean energy sector in the Innovation Fund ‘Pilot Window’: Are projects eligible if they operate for 15-20 years and generate revenues from power production to cover some of their costs?

The Innovation Fund ‘Pilot Projects’ window had 2 points of uncertainty for the ocean energy sector. OEE has sought more information on both these questions. Below is the latest intelligence & guidance.

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The Innovation Fund is the EU’s most powerful tool to fund clean energy pre-commercial projects – including wave & tidal arrays.

It provides a combination of large up-front capex grants and payments linked to power generation milestones.

The 3rd large-scale call opened on 3 November 2022. It has a €300m ‘window’ for Pilot Projects. Projects can get grants of up to €40m – and the window’s scoring system is very favourable to ocean energy.

The Innovation Fund remains competitive, and proposals need to be of high quality. So OEE has organised a members-only webinar on 17 November at 11:00 CEST – to give members the best chance of winning.

Uwe Lutzen, Head of Sector in the European Commission’s ‘CINEA’ Agency will introduce the new Innovation Fund call and answer any questions from the sector.

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The new Innovation Fund call has a total budget of €3bn, with several dedicated ‘funding windows’. This briefing focuses exclusively on the €300m ‘Pilot Projects’ window.