On July 13th, the European Commission announced a total of 41 projects that will receive grants as part of the latest call for funding for large-scale projects from the EU Innovation Fund.
The Innovation Fund’s third call attracted a total of 239 applications, with the 41 selected now to sign grant agreements for a total of €3.6 billion ($4bn). The EU Innovation Fund is one of the world’s largest funding vehicles for the deployment of net-zero and carbon management technologies.
It is financed from the proceeds of the EU Emissions Trading System that receives revenue from the monetization of the 530 million ETS allowances. A total of over €40 billion might be allocated for carbon reduction, innovative technologies and carbon management by 2030 through the Innovation Fund, calculated based on a carbon price of €75/tCO2 – the price paid by emitters per emissions allowance.
The projects that have been selected now cover four topics:
- General decarbonization – 8 projects to be awarded €1.4 billion
- Industry electrification and hydrogen – 13 projects to receive almost €1.2 billion
- Cleantech manufacturing – 11 projects to be awarded almost €800 million
- Mid-sized projects – 9 projects to be awarded €250 million
10 carbon management projects are among the 41 to receive grants. They are in the carbon capture and storage, carbon capture and utilization, hydrogen and direct air capture sectors.
Relevant: EU Innovation Fund Awards €4.5 Million To Four Belgian Companies
The projects are as follows:
- GeZero carbon capture and storage project (Germany) – Heidelberg Materials’ first-of-its-kind project that includes a full-scale CCS installation that will fully decarbonize cement production at the company’s Geseke plant in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It aims to capture 700,000 metric tons of CO2 annually from 2029.
- KOdeCO carbon capture and storage project (Croatia) – the project aims to capture and store carbon from Holcim’s plant in Koromačno.
- eM-Rhône carbon capture project (France) – carbon captured from Holcim’s Le Teil plant will be used to produce e-methanol.
- Go4Zero carbon capture and storage project (Belgium) – it aims to capture and store CO2 from Holcim’s plant in Obourg.
- IFESTOS carbon capture project (Greece) – Titan Group’s carbon capture and storage project on a cement plant that will start the CCS value chain in the southern part of the EU.
- IRIS hydrogen and CCUS project (Greece) – Motor Oil Hellas low carbon hydrogen production decarbonized with large-scale carbon capture technology. The captured CO2 will be combined with green electrolytic hydrogen to produce e-methanol as a low-carbon energy carrier for mobility purposes and for other industrial usage.
- EVEREST carbon capture project (Germany) – a carbon capture project to decarbonize Europe’s largest limestone plant. EVEREST will build 3 first-of-a-kind oxyfuel kilns and equip them with carbon capture technology and as a next step, will retrofit existing kilns for carbon capture.
Relevant: ANRAV Carbon Capture Project Receives €190M From EU Innovation Fund
- Columbus (Belgium) – the project aims to avoid direct CO2 emissions from lime production by transforming CO2 into e-methane at an industrial scale. Captured CO2 from lime production is combined with green hydrogen to produce carbon-neutral synthetic e-methane.
- GREEN MEIGA (Spain) – the project combines hybridized hydrogen production system comprising alkaline, proton-exchange membrane (PEM), solid oxide electrolyzer cell (SOEC) and SOEC co-electrolysis systems, an integrated e-methanol production system, and an advanced CO2 capture system integrating enzyme-based and direct air-capture technologies. It produces e-methanol.
- TRISKELION (Spain) – it aims to produce green methanol from hydrogen and captured CO2.
