Brussels (Brussels Morning) The EU is investing 122 million euro in innovative projects that are bringing low-carbon technologies to the market, in line with the European Green Deal. The focus will be on energy intensive industries, hydrogen, energy storage and renewable energy.
“The EU is giving concrete support to clean-tech projects all over Europe to scale-up technological solutions that can help reach climate neutrality by 2050”, Executive Vice-President Timmermans said.
Innovation Fund
The money will come from the Innovation Fund, one of the world’s largest funding programmes for promoting innovative climate-orientated technologies.
In total, 32 small projects located in 14 EU countries, and Iceland and Norway will benefit from a 118 million euro injection from the Innovation Fund.
In addition to these grants, 15 projects located in 10 EU countries and Norway will benefit from project development assistance worth up to 4.4 million euro to help them attain their goals.
“The increase of the Innovation Fund proposed in the ‘Fit for 55’ Package will enable the EU to support even more projects in the future, speed them up, and bring them to the market as quickly as possible”, Timmermans observed.
Connecting Europe Facility
In a further bid to mitigate the effects of climate change and GHGs, the European Parliament recently adopted the upgraded Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme.
Thanks to the strengthened programme, the Parliament released new funds for transport, digital and energy projects for the period 2021-2027.
MEP Henna Virkkunen (EPP) said the CEF will help finance key cross-border connectivity and renewable energy projects between EU countries.
In total, the Parliament earmarked 60% of CEF funds for projects that help achieve the EU’s climate objectives, while 15% of energy funds will be dedicated to cross-border renewable energy projects.The transport sector is also poised to be modernised in line with the EU’s climate ambitions. “The CEF will help Europe cope with the sector’s decarbonisation challenges and contribute especially to making the ‘shift to rail’ slogan a reality”, MEP Marian-Jean Marinescu (EPP) declared.
