EU invests €118 million in innovative projects to decarbonise the economy

28. Jul 2021

For the first time since the creation of the Innovation Fund, the European Union is investing €118 million into 32 small innovative projects located in 14 EU Member States, Iceland and Norway. The grants will support projects aiming to bring low-carbon technologies to the market in energy intensive industries, hydrogen, energy storage and renewable energy.

The 32 projects selected for funding were evaluated by independent experts for their ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional technologies and to innovate beyond the state-of-the-art while being sufficiently mature to enable their quick deployment.

Among these 32 projects, there are 2 planned in Poland.

 The aim is to develop a water electrolysis system to produce green hydrogen, which would be used in the transport sector.

Among the selected projects there is an investment in a green hydrogen plant with a capacity of 5 MW, planned by the Adamów – Pątnów – Konin power plant complex.

According to the project description, the whole system is to consist of two PEM electrolyzers powered by two independent sources of renewable energy. 60% of the energy will be supplied from photovoltaic power plants, the missing 40% will be supplied by external suppliers. The capacity of the entire plant is expected to be 710 tons of hydrogen per year. The innovativeness of the project lies in the fact that with the new construction of the electrolyzer, it will be possible to reduce emissions per unit of hydrogen to 0.51 tCO2e/t, while the reference point given by the European Commission is at 6.84 tCO2e/t

Funding has also been received for a lithium-ion battery project to be implemented in Poland by Northvolt.Construction of the new factory has already begun. The initial phase of the project assumes annual production of 5 GWh modules. In the second phase of the project, the factory will be expanded to a total capacity of 12 GWh. The new R&D center, which will be established in connection with the factory expansion, will create 500 new jobs in the region.The factory will be supplied with lithium-ion cells from the giant Northvolt Ett factory, located in Skellefteå, Sweden. The new factory will be powered by renewable energy, including on-site generation. The Swedish factory Northvolt Ett in Skellefteå specializes in the production of batteries for use in electric cars and stationary energy storage. The plant will eventually produce batteries with a total capacity of 40 GWh per year.

These projects will be important elements in the future transition away from fossil fuels. Energy storage is currently the most important technical aspect in fully exploiting the potential of RES