Last week the European Commission announced the results of the latest call of the EU Innovation Fund. For the first time the focus of the call was firmly on clean power manufacturing. 6 wind energy projects are among the winners.
"The results of the latest Innovation Fund call are excellent. The European Commission has finally started to adapt its innovation strategy. It is moving from technology-neutral R&I support to scaling up clean tech manufacturing. That's the way to secure technology leadership, boost climate protection and strengthen the EU's industrial competitiveness", said WindEurope CEO Giles Dickson.
European Commission awarded 6 wind energy projects in the latest EU Innovation Fund call. All awarded projects will invest in new wind energy manufacturing capacity. At least 4 of them will be for offshore wind.
The successful projects will be located in Denmark, Germany, Poland and Spain. They include manufacturing of next-generation power trains for wind turbines, XXL towers for offshore wind farms, new rotor designs as well as small and medium-sized wind power systems.
Background:
The EU Innovation Fund is one of the world's largest funding programmes for the demonstration of innovative low-carbon technologies. The Fund focuses on highly innovative clean technologies and big flagship projects with European added value that can bring significant emission and greenhouse gas reductions. The Innovation Fund is financed by EU Emissions Trading System revenues. Over the period of 2020-2030 the Innovation Fund will grant funding worth around 40bn.
In the latest Innovation Fund call 85 innovative net-zero projects were awarded a total of 4.8bn. The selected projects are set to be commissioned before 2030 and over their first ten years of operation are expected to reduce emissions by about 476mn tonnes of CO2 equivalent. The projects are now due to sign their grant agreements with the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) in the first quarter of 2025.
