Innovation Fund: lessons learned from the first call for small-scale projects

On 13 January 2022, the Directorate General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA) and the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) are organising an event to present the lessons learnt, best practices and useful takeaways from the first Innovation Fund call for large-scale projects.

On 3 July 2020, the Commission launched the first call for large-scale projects under the Innovation Fund with a budget of €1 billion. The call closed on 29 October 2020 and resulted in seven projects invited to prepare individual grant agreements. With the second large-scale call launched on 26 October 2021, we took stock of lessons learnt from the first call and what applicants could improve for the ongoing one. During the event, we will present an aggregated analysis of the applications and the results of the first call, highlighting best practices for a successful application.

The event will be open to the public and web-streamed. The recording and presentations will be published after the session.

Before and during the event, you can ask your questions via Slido using the event code #IF1LSC.

Provisional agenda:

• 10:00 Welcome and introduction
• 10:05 Lessons learnt: aggregated statistics and results of the first call for large-scale projects – Presentation by DG CLIMA
• 10:25 Best practices from the first call for large-scale projects and tips for a successful application – Presentation by CINEA
• 11:00 Q&A

More information
With its €25 billion of support over 2020-2030 (estimated at price of carbon of EUR50/tCO2), the Innovation Fund is one of the world’s largest funding programmes for the demonstration of innovative low-carbon technologies, aiming to bring to the market industrial solutions to decarbonise Europe.

On 3 July 2020, the Commission launched the first call for large-scale projects (total capital costs above €7.5 million) with a budget of €1 billion for breakthrough technologies in the energy-intensive industries, renewables, energy storage, and carbon capture, use and storage. We received 311 applications for innovative clean tech projects in the first stage, promising to reduce 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 during their operating period within the Innovation Fund. 70 applicants were invited to second stage and submit a full application. Applicants were informed about the results of the evaluation process on 16 November 2021 and successful applicants were invited to start the grant preparation process. Grants will be awarded in the first quarter of 2022.

For more information on the lessons learned from the first stage of the call for large-scale projects, you can check the recording and presentations from the event we organised on 28 April 2021.