More growth and jobs: €500 million in EU funding available for clean energy infrastructure
ec.europa.eu
The European Commission is releasing today €500 million of funding for cross-border energy infrastructure. The projects will strengthen the EU's internal energy market, enhance security of energy supply, and help provide clean, sustainable energy for Europe. The 2018-2 CEF Energy call for proposals (CEF-Energy-2018-2) under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF-Energy) will be open until 11 October 2018.
Proposed projects, which can be either studies or construction works, will be evaluated against several criteria. These include their state of maturity, their cross-border dimension, and to what extent they will remove bottlenecks to energy flow and end energy isolation of EU countries. To be eligible to apply for CEF funding, projects must be designated Projects of Common Interest (PCIs). PCIs are considered essential for completing the EU's internal energy market, and are required to have a significant impact on at least two EU countries. The third PCI list, which entered into force in April 2018, has an increased focus on electricity projects, with 110 projects out of 173 financing electricity transmission and smart grids. 53 projects support gas and six are in oil transportation. For the first time there are also four projects in the area of cross-border carbon dioxide transportation.
The CEF-Energy provides EU funding for energy infrastructure projects that increase competitiveness, enhance the EU's security of energy supply, contribute to sustainable development and protection of the environment, as well as promotion of safe, secure (including cybersecurity) and efficient network operation. It is making available a total of €5.35 billion for energy projects in the period 2014-2020.
Recent crucial examples of CEF-Energy grants are: the construction of the Biscay Gulf France-Spain interconnection (at €578 million, the largest CEF-Energy grant ever awarded); the support for the Balticconnector project, which will establish a physical interconnection between the Finnish and Estonian gas transmission systems; and the grant for the SINCRO GRID project, which will help the Slovenian and Croatian transmission and distribution grid.
Projects submitted in response to this call will be evaluated in November and December 2018, and the results will be communicated in early 2019.
