New Opportunity for EU funding for Green Projects

17 Norwegian applications were submitted in the first ever call for proposals to the EU Innovation Fund. Now a new announcement is out. While the first was aimed at the largest projects, the target group for the second call is small and medium-sized projects.

– The call, which has an application deadline of 10 March, is a so-called small-scale call, and should therefore be relevant for a larger number of projects. We therefore hope that as many people as possible take advantage of the opportunity, and that we get as good a response as in the first round, says Marketing Manager Arve Solheim in Enova, which manages the Norwegian participation in the EU's innovation fund.

The fund is one of the world's largest investment funds for demonstration and commercialization of innovative low-emission technology.

The purpose of the fund is to ensure the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that provide a climate-neutral Europe by bringing innovative low-emission technologies to market.

In the very first call for proposals, which had an application deadline in October 2020, a total of 311 applications were received by the fund. 17 of the applications were Norwegian, which means that Norway, in applications per capita was only beaten by Iceland, Estonia and Luxembourg.

Climate-friendly Materials

Anyone who has projects within at least one of the fund's five focus areas can apply.

The five focus areas are:

• Innovative renewable energy production
• Innovative low-carbon technologies and processes in energy-intensive industries, including products such as former carbon-intensive products
• Construction and operation of carbon capture and storage (CCS)
• Carbon capture and utilisation (CCU)
• Energy storage.

– In the call that is out now, there is also a demand for projects where climate-friendly materials can replace, for example, cement, so this can also be an opportunity for innovative players in the construction industry, says Solheim in Enova.

Project Founder Support

The projects that can apply for support in this announcement round must have an investment cost between 2.5 and 7.5 million Euros.

To reach the competition, the projects must be so mature that the technology can be tested on a full scale. In addition to consulting, Enova offers project start-up support to current applicants. Enova can provide up to NOK 300,000 in such support.

-We know that such application processes are resource-intensive, and therefore alleviate costs associated with this by up to 50 percent through our Project Establishment Support program for the EU Innovation Fund. Then hopefully the threshold for applying will be lower, and we want with this support to contribute to increased quality of applications from Norwegian players, says Arve Solheim in Enova.

The information above was translated from ENOVA's article in Norwegian at their website

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So far, we have succeeded in helping cluster companies in securing more than 1.7 Billion NOK in external funded projects owned and run by cluster companies.

Please, do not hesitate to contact us for support and advice regarding the case above, or for national and EU projects.