European Commission: Grants for fostering Sustainable Energy Uptake

Deadline: 12-Jan-22

The European Commission is inviting proposals for Fostering sustainable energy uptake along the whole value chain in industry and services.

The scope of this topic is to establish collaborations between SMEs and larger companies, operating in the same value chain, in order to ensure that energy efficiency measures and the use of renewable energy sources are maximised at each step of the process, in line with the EU strategy on energy system integration and more in general with the EU Green Deal and the EU industrial strategy.

Proposals are expected to develop, test and validate innovative business models and approaches fostering collaboration among companies within one or several specific value chains in the industry and service sectors. Proposals should clearly describe these models and approaches, their relevance and added value for the targeted value chains. Business cases should be produced based on the real interaction and experiences gained among the relevant actors during the timeframe of the project. A detailed exploitation strategy should be provided in order to effectively roll out the project results to the relevant value chains across the EU.

Additionally, benchmarking mechanisms and monitoring systems focusing on the energy use at value chain level could be developed, in order to avoid shifting carbon emissions from one level to another of the value chain; such benchmarks should focus specifically on energy and not on a broader GHG approach. In this regard, proposals are expected to provide policy recommendations to further improve the collection, transparency and accessibility of companies’ energy use data in order to support the development of reporting standards to monitor progress towards the EU’s 2030 and 2050 climate and energy objectives.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of up to EUR 2 million would allow the specific objectives to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Objectives

Companies tend to focus their efforts on energy consumptions related to their own activities, which excludes those of their value chain (i.e. all delivery technologies, products and services contributing to the final product). The objective of this topic is to engage companies to embrace a more holistic approach in order to better take into account the risks associated to high energy intensity in the supply chain (e.g. exposure to energy prices, image, litigation, etc.), and to make it more sustainable and resilient.

This paradigm shift can further unlock the market potential for sustainable solutions while enabling to benchmark the entire lifecycle impacts (e.g. water consumption, CO2 emissions, soil impacts, etc.) of industrial and service processes.

In this regard, large companies can play a crucial role to support SMEs, which operate in their supply chain, to invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions.

Funding Information

LIFE-2021-CET-VALUECHAIN- EUR 4 000 000

Expected Impact

Development and implementation of economically viable business models at value chain level, ready to be rolled out on the market
Number of companies and value chains involved in the implementation of the business models and business cases
Data evidence on value chain energy use made available to relevant market actors
Development of innovative benchmarking and monitoring systems for whole energy use at value chain level
Improvement of standards, governance and regulatory frameworks to support the integration of energy efficiency and renewable energy at value chain level
Replicable use cases demonstrating value chain solutions implementing energy efficiency measures and integrating renewable energy
Primary energy savings/Renewable energy generation triggered by the project (in GWh/year)
Investments in sustainable energy triggered by the project (cumulative, in million Euro)

Eligibility Criteria

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

be legal entities (public or private bodies)
be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)
- non-EU countries: listed EEA countries and countries associated to the LIFE Programme (participating countries) or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature
the coordinator must be established in an eligible country.

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