With a budget worth €4.8 billion, the latest call of the Innovation Fund 2023 has funded 85 net-zero projects to boost cutting-edge clean technologies in Europe.
Projects of different scales have been funded under the 2023 call for proposals within five topics:
- General decarbonisation (large-scale): €1.7 billion available for projects with CAPEX above €100 million.
- General decarbonisation (medium-scale): €500 million available for projects with CAPEX between €20 million and €100 million.
- General decarbonisation (small-scale): €200 million available for projects with CAPEX between €2.5 million and €20 million.
- Cleantech manufacturing: €1.4 billion available for projects with CAPEX above €2.5 million focusing on the manufacturing of components for renewable energy, energy storage, heat pumps and hydrogen production.
- Pilot: €200 million available for projects with CAPEX above €2.5 million focusing on deep decarbonisation.
Projects are evaluated according to their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, degree of innovation, maturity, replicability and cost efficiency. The Innovation Fund can cover up to 60% of the project’s relevant costs.
About the Q4 IF23 Call
The selected projects are located in 18 countries, with Spain (30 projects, 35%), France (27 projects, 32%) and Italy (23 projects, 27%) the top recipients.
Projects fall within four categories: energy-intensive industries (50 projects), renewable energy (17 projects), energy storage (10 projects), and net-zero mobility (including maritime and aviation) and buildings (8 projects).
The awarded projects will enter into operation before 2030 and they are expected to reduce emissions by about 476 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in the first 10 years of operation. This will help to meet European decarbonisation objectives, reduce emissions from those sectors that are particularly difficult to decarbonise, strengthen European industrial manufacturing capacity and reinforce Europe’s technology leadership and supply chain resilience.
The 85 selected projects can be classified as follows:
| Project | Type | Category | Sector | Location | Coordinator |
| CO2LLECT Innovation in Carbon Capture and Transport | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Cement & lime | Germany | CEMEX Zement GmbH |
| StarFish Sequestration Technology and Reservoir: Floating Injection and Storage Havstjerne | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Other | Norway | Stella Maris CCS AS |
| TarraCO2-Storage TarraCO2, the reduction of CO | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Other | Spain | REPSOL EXPLORACION SA |
| CarboClearTech CarboClearTech | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Cement & lime | France | LAFARGE CIMENTS |
| H2HubEmden Hydrogen and heat production with a 200 MW electrolyser and large-scale heat pumps on an existing power plant site in Emden | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Hydrogen | Germany | Statkraft Hydrogen GmbH |
| ZESTA Zero Emission Steelmaking at ArcelorMittal | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Iron & steel | Belgium | ARCELORMITTAL BELGIUM NV |
| HERMES Hybrid Electric Regional Aircraft Manufactured in Europe for Sustainable aviation | IF23Call – General large-scale | Net-zero mobility and buildings | Aviation | France | AURA AERO SAS |
| ReOil 25000 | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Chemicals | Austria | OMV DOWNSTREAM GMBH |
| 3D Fibre Functional, safe, and sustainable 3D wood fibre-based packaging innovation to replace plastics in food and food service packaging | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Chemicals | Finland | METSA SPRING OY |
| GAIA: GREEN AMMONIA IN ASTURIAS. | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Chemicals | Spain | FERTIBERIA SA |
| eNRG Kotka spearheads sector integration, unlocking unparalleled value through cutting-edge power-to-gas technology | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Refineries | Finland | Nordic Ren-Gas Oy |
| H2BE H2BE: the first 1GW low-carbon H2 production facility to enable and accelerate industrial decarbonisation, critical H2/CO2 infrastructure realisation and H2 market development in Northern Europe. | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Hydrogen | Belgium | ELECTRABEL |
| LaunchStores LaunchStores4AramisCCS | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Other | Netherlands | TOTALENERGIES EP NEDERLAND BV |
| bicEPS Boosting Implementation of Cleantech Electric Power Steering | IF23Call – General large-scale | Net-zero mobility and buildings | Road transport | Germany | KNORR-BREMSE SYSTEME FUR NUTZFAHRZEUGE GMBH |
| ENHANCE European Network for Hydrogen and Ammonia Carbon-Neutral Energy – Gateway for Hydrogen | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Hydrogen | Belgium | AIR LIQUIDE LARGE INDUSTRY |
| GreenWave Replicative Approach to e-Methanol Production Scaling | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Refineries | Denmark | European Energy A/S |
| MODUS MicrOwave Depolymerization UpScaling | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Chemicals | Spain | MODELO DE UPCYCLING SOSTENIBLE |
| INNOZHERO Innovation for Zero Emissions in Helsingborg | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Other | Sweden | Öresundskraft Kraft & Värme AB |
| ACCSION – Aalborg Portland Carbon Capture and Storage using Infrastructure Onshore in North Jutland | IF23Call – General large-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Cement & lime | Denmark | Aalborg Portland A/S |
| Greensand Future Greensand Future: contributing to EU’s CO2 emissions reduction target by establishing critical EU storage capacity | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Other | Denmark | INEOS E&P A/S |
| CapturEste – Carbon Capture to Decarbonize Herambiente Ferrara Waste-to-Energy Plant | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Other | Italy | HERAMBIENTE S.P.A. |
| Danube Removals Danube Onshore Fermentation Carbon Removals | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Other | Hungary | Danube CCS Ventures Kft. |
| CORMORANT Large-scale manufacturing faCility Of innovative electRic MOtors for maRitime trANsporTs | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Net-zero mobility and buildings | Maritime | Norway | EVOY AS |
| CT Quarry Circular Technology Quarry: Providing green materials for more sustainable construction | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Glass, ceramics & construction material | Spain | Cosentino Industrial, S.A.U. |
| AdriatiCO2 Marcegaglia AdriatiCO2 | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Iron & steel | Italy | MARCEGAGLIA RAVENNA S.P.A.. |
| Re-Tyre CO2 Sustainable Recycling of waste tyres through a CO2 -saving pyrolytic process: production of new alternative fuel, carbon black and circular gas utilization | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Refineries | Italy | Saras SpA |
| RAD4AL Installing A Radiation Curing Coil Coating Line At A New Elval Colour Facility Designed For The Coating Of Products Made Out Of Aluminium | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Non-ferrous Metals | Greece | ELVAL COLOUR SINGLE MEMBER SA |
| BigBATT Large-scale Battery Deployment in Generation Platform | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Intra-day electricity storage | Portugal | EDP – GESTAO DA PRODUCAO DE ENERGIASA |
| INDIGO First of a kind hybrid decarbonisation platform for passenger ship – space, time and cost-efficient retrofitting with improved operational efficiency and reduction of emissions and impacts | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Net-zero mobility and buildings | Maritime | Italy | Princess Cruises Ltd. |
| HydroGreen Greening the Production of Hydrogen Peroxide | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Hydrogen | Finland | Solvay Chemicals Finland Oy |
| AMBASSADOR: closed-loop installation for sustAinable production of bioMethane, BioCO2 And biofertilizerS a new StandArD fOr zeRo waste economy | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Other | Poland | BZK ENERGY SPOLKA Z OGRANICZONA ODPOWIEDZIALNOSCIA |
| REACH REACH REMOTE | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Net-zero mobility and buildings | Maritime | Norway | Reach Subsea AS |
| H2ydroShuttle First of a kind high-speed zero emission short sea container service powered by multi-megawatt liquefied RFNBO hydrogen fuel cells | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Net-zero mobility and buildings | Maritime | Netherlands | Samskip Holding B.V. |
| SOVALIS SOlar farm and VAnadium LIthium Storage | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Renewable energy | Solar energy | France | BORALEX |
| SPACE CarbonSmart Factory: Skövde Plant Approaching Carbon Elimination (SPACE) | IF23Call – General medium-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Iron & steel | Sweden | VOLVO POWERTRAIN AKTIEBOLAG |
| BACCO Biofiller Agro-industrial Can Change hOrizon | IF23Call – General small-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Chemicals | Italy | TAMPIERI FINANCIAL GROUP SPA |
| BESS4HYDRO Battery Energy Storage System for HYDROpower | IF23Call – General small-scale | Energy storage | Intra-day electricity storage | Italy | ENEL PRODUZIONE SPA |
| LocaCloud Brescia QARNOT Innovative Distributed Data Centre designed to retrieve and exploit waste heat for integration into Brescia district heating network | IF23Call – General small-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Other | Italy | QARNOT COMPUTING |
| FELIX First total ELectrification In large-scale luXury glass production | IF23Call – General small-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Glass, ceramics & construction material | Spain | Bormioli Rocco, SAU |
| Floating Sky Floating Sky: FUSIO demonstrator | IF23Call – General small-scale | Renewable energy | Solar energy | Belgium | TERTRE INNOVATION SOLAIRE |
| PVORELLANA Agrovoltaic Technology Demonstration Plant on Orellana Canal | IF23Call – General small-scale | Renewable energy | Solar energy | Spain | PROYECTOS RENOVABLES INNOVADORES SA |
| DMC2 Combined renewable heat plant – solar thermal, storage, heat recovery and heat pumps – achieving 80% decarbonisation of the heat supply for an industrial malt producing facility in Croatia | IF23Call – General small-scale | Renewable energy | Solar energy | Croatia | NEWHEAT |
| LowCO2bars Decarbonizing the manufacturing of steel bars by innovative IHMS electric heating systems | IF23Call – General small-scale | Energy-intensive industries | Iron & steel | Italy | Ferriera Valsabbia S.p.A. |
| GRAND PIANO GeneRating and UpscAling iNnovation in green hyDrogen Production: boostIng PEM and AEM techNologies in EurOpe | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy-intensive industries | Manufacturing of components for EII | Belgium | BEKAERT NV |
| HSS-Gen2 Voith Plug&Drive Hydrogen Storage System (Gen 2) | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy storage | Manufacturing of components for ES | Germany | J. M. VOITH SE & CO. KG |
| Next.Gen.Wind Next Generation Wind powertrain production | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Renewable energy | Manufacturing of components for RES | Germany | FLENDER GMBH |
| NEMO Next-Generation European Union Manufacturing for Offshore wind | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Renewable energy | Manufacturing of components for RES | Denmark | SIEMENS GAMESA RENEWABLE ENERGY AS |
| Project Sagitta Project Sagitta – Scalable Automated Gigawatt Initiative for Technology That Accelerates decarbonization | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy-intensive industries | Manufacturing of components for EII | Norway | HYSTAR AS |
| CAMELIA Cathode active material manufacturing for LFP lithium-ion batteries | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy storage | Manufacturing of components for ES | Finland | FREYR Battery Finland Joint Venture Oy |
| MOD4PV GIGAWATT SCALE ASSEMBLY PLANT OF DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY PV MODULES | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Renewable energy | Manufacturing of components for RES | Spain | Trina Solar (Luxembourg) Holdings |
| Project HYPE Automized manufacturing of pressurized alkaline electrolyser | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy-intensive industries | Manufacturing of components for EII | Norway | NEL HYDROGEN ELECTROLYSER AS |
| GALLICAM | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy storage | Manufacturing of components for ES | France | SIBANYE-STILLWATER SANDOUVILLE REFINERY |
| RESILIENCE Revolutionizing Energy: Scaling manufacturing of Innovative, reversibLe, hIghly EfficieNt, Carbon-nEgative power plants | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Renewable energy | Manufacturing of components for RES | Germany | REVERION GMBH |
| NorthCYCLE Industrializing a green process for battery raw material recycling | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy storage | Manufacturing of components for ES | Sweden | Northvolt Revolt AB |
| ELCOI ELCO I: Solid Oxide Cell and Stack Manufacturing facility | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy-intensive industries | Manufacturing of components for EII | Estonia | AKTSIASELTS ELCOGEN |
| FENICE Futurasun advancEd italiaN manufacturIng Centre | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Renewable energy | Manufacturing of components for RES | Italy | FUTURASUN S.R.L. |
| FicH2tel Ballard Power System’s Fuel Cell Hydrogen Technology Engine Location | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy-intensive industries | Manufacturing of components for EII | Germany | BALLARD POWER SYSTEMS INC |
| LiTH.OS CELL: establishing dedicated Lithium Operations in South Europe to serve the ESS and industrial mobility markets | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy storage | Manufacturing of components for ES | Greece | SUNLIGHT GROUP SYSTIMATA APOTHIKEFSIS ENERGEIAS VIOMICHANIKI KAI EMPORIKI ANONYMI ETAIRIA |
| H2ManuNet First-of-a-kind Modular and Highly replicable factory to deploy a distributed European GW scale manufacturing network supplying Cost-Effective AEM electrolyser technology | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy-intensive industries | Manufacturing of components for EII | Italy | Vision2H S.p.A. |
| PM Hy-Factory Proton smart factory: Automated series production of unique Proton Motor fuel cell stacks and systems for stationary and mobile applications | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Renewable energy | Manufacturing of components for RES | Germany | Proton Motor Fuel Cell GmbH |
| Rhyno ADVENT RHyno – Renewable Hydrogen Innovative Technologies project | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy-intensive industries | Manufacturing of components for EII | Greece | ADVANCED ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES AE EREUNAS & ANAPTYXIS YLIKON & PROIONTONANANEOSIMON PIGON ENERGEIAS & SYNAFON SYMVOULEFTIKON Y PIRESION |
| TalnodeONE Establishing Europe’s First Natural Graphite Anode Production Facility for Sustainable Lithium-Ion Batteries | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy storage | Manufacturing of components for ES | Sweden | TALGA AB |
| Battolyser Factory 1 A first-of-its-kind 1GW Battolyser® factory to manufacture a next-generation 100% flexible electrolyser and battery that produces the lowest-cost green hydrogen | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Renewable energy | Manufacturing of components for RES | Netherlands | Battolyser Bv. |
| HTEM300 High Temperature Electrolyser Manufacturing 300MW/a (HTEM300) | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy-intensive industries | Manufacturing of components for EII | Germany | thyssenkrupp nucera Projekt 1 GmbH |
| NEFO Norvento Enerxía Factory Zero – Factory of Equipment for Energy Generation and Storage | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy storage | Manufacturing of components for ES | Spain | NORVENTO ENERXIA, S.L. |
| H2-GIGA Large scale production of high performing electrodes | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Energy-intensive industries | Manufacturing of components for EII | Denmark | HydrogenPro AS |
| WINDPL Sustainable manufacturing facility for XXL offshore wind towers | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Renewable energy | Manufacturing of components for RES | Poland | Windar Polska sp. z o.o. |
| CircularSteam Demonstration of modular 50 MW manufacturing plant for industrial steam heat pumps to decarbonize small – to – medium scale EU ETS I & II facilities | IF23Call – Manufacturing | Renewable energy | Manufacturing of components for RES | Belgium | Armstrong International S.A. |
| HYODE HYdrogen Offshore DunkerquE | IF23Call – Pilots | Energy-intensive industries | Hydrogen | France | EDF RENOUVELABLES FRANCE |
| PIVOT PIloting and Validating the manufacturing and assembly of the most powerful Offshore wind Turbine generator | IF23Call – Pilots | Renewable energy | Manufacturing of components for RES | Denmark | SIEMENS GAMESA RENEWABLE ENERGY AS |
| L1X Unlocking a bio-based future by turning globally available waste biomass into renewable building blocks | IF23Call – Pilots | Energy-intensive industries | Chemicals | Slovakia | LIXEA SWEDEN AB |
| eReform Industrialising eSMR for Biomethanol Production | IF23Call – Pilots | Energy-intensive industries | Chemicals | Norway | FLEXFUELS AS |
| KHP The Plagazi Process: A Patented Plasma Gasification System to Turn Hard-to-Recycle Waste into Clean Hydrogen | IF23Call – Pilots | Energy-intensive industries | Hydrogen | Sweden | Köping Hydrogen Park AB |
| ScaleUp Large-Scale Underground Tank Thermal Energy Storage as a Key Technology for Sustainable District Heating Systems | IF23Call – Pilots | Energy storage | Other energy storage | Austria | WIEN ENERGIE GMBH |
| MetZero Biocarbon reductants for decarbonising the metallurgical industry | IF23Call – Pilots | Energy-intensive industries | Other | Norway | Cruda AS |
| FloWatt The world’s most powerful tidal energy farm | IF23Call – Pilots | Renewable energy | Hydro/Ocean energy | France | FLOWATT |
| FUTURE Food waste Upcycling for Transformative Utilization in Renewable Environmental lactic acid | IF23Call – Pilots | Energy-intensive industries | Chemicals | Belgium | 3PLW |
| ELECTRA Demonstration of the world’s first industrial-scale electric cracker for VCM production | IF23Call – Pilots | Energy-intensive industries | Chemicals | Norway | INOVYN Norge AS |
| EO2 Energy Observer 2 – The world’s lowest carbon cargo ship in the world | IF23Call – Pilots | Net-zero mobility and buildings | Maritime | France | AssetCo EO2 |
| N2TR NextGen Thermal Tire Re-use | IF23Call – Pilots | Energy-intensive industries | Chemicals | Belgium | Bolder Industries Belgium |
| NH1 Raz-Blanchard Raz-Blanchard project is the installation of four x 3MW underwater tidal turbine to generate electricity for a total output of 12MW. | IF23Call – Pilots | Renewable energy | Hydro/Ocean energy | France | Normandie Hydroliennes |
| Swap2Zero Swap2Zero | IF23Call – Pilots | Net-zero mobility and buildings | Maritime | Italy | COMPAGNIE DU PONANT |
| RGEN4 Development of an innovative process to recover the lithium from end-of-life solid-state lithium-metal batteries (4th generation of battery) | IF23Call – Pilots | Energy-intensive industries | Non-ferrous Metals | France | BLUE SOLUTIONS |
| CASTRO The project will design, build, and validate a wind turbine with a new rotor design. The rotor design will enable commercially feasible wind turbines with an unprecedented high capacity factor. | IF23Call – Pilots | Renewable energy | Wind energy | Denmark | VESTAS WIND SYSTEMS A/S |
| Norberg Mine Storage Pumped Storage Hydropower Plant in a decommissioned mine | IF23Call – Pilots | Energy storage | Intra-day electricity storage | Sweden | Mine Storage International AB |
Background: previous results
The previous call of the Innovation Fund was launched on November 23, 2023, when 15 small-scale and 3 large-scale projects were funded. Applications closed on April 9, 2024 and results were published in June 2024.
Results of the small-scale projects call showed that the most awarded area was renewable energy (3 out of 15 projects awarded), followed by energy storage and energy-intensive industries (2 projects each). Regarding the awarded projects per country, Italy and France obtained the highest number of winners (3 projects each, 20%), followed by Spain (2 projects, 13%).
