Strata Innovation & Growth has created the complete guide to the Innovation Fund 2025 with the most important changes made by the European Commission.

The Innovation Fund is one of the main tools the European Commission has to reach climate neutrality. This programme focuses on funding cutting-edge European initiatives and technologies that have the potential to significantly reduce emissions, so it is designed to distribute the risk across project sponsors and promote ground breaking, first-of-its-kind decarbonisation projects.

Some of the  the most important points include:

Innovation Fund 2025: an Overview

• The Innovation Fund is the EU’s climate policy fund focusing on energy and industry.
• In addition to bringing technology to market to decarbonize the European economy and help in its transition to climate neutrality, it aims to boost industrial competitiveness. It is an essential financial instrument for fulfilling the Paris Agreement’s requirements for the EU’s whole economy.
• By finding the greatest possible balance between a range of cutting-edge technologies in all eligible industries and countries, the Fund aims to support a varied project pipeline.
• Applications from organizations headquartered outside of the EU, Iceland, Norway, and Lichtenstein are accepted, however projects must be based in these nations.

Budget for 2025

The Innovation Fund supports up to 60% (in case of regular grants) and up to 100% (in case of competitive bidding) of the relevant costs calculated according to the methodology indicated in each call for proposals (usually covering capital and operational costs minus revenues over the first ten years of operation).

The grants are being disbursed in a flexible way based on project financing needs, taking into account the milestones achieved during the project lifetime.

For regular grants, up to 40% of the grant can be given based on pre-defined milestones before the whole project is fully up and running.

Who can apply?

The fund is open to large-scale projects with a capital expenditure (CAPEX) above €7.5 million, as well as to small-scale projects with capital expenditure (CAPEX) under €7.5 million. The projects need to be sufficiently mature in terms of planning, business model as well as financial structure.

Eligibility

The Innovation Fund funds projects focused on:

• innovative low-carbon technologies and processes in energy-intensive industries, including products that can substitute carbon-intensive ones,
• carbon capture and utilisation – CCU,
• construction and operation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities,
• innovative renewable energy generation,
• energy storage.

To know more about the Innovation Fund

If you want to know more about the application process for the Innovation Fund 2025, learn about its novelties in detail, and access Strata’s unique offering, download our guide filling in this form:

Article and cover image by Sara Gavidia.