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The European Commission is offering €3 billion (£2.6bn) for innovative, large-scale cleantech projects to support efforts to end the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels.

It has launched the third call for projects under the EU Innovation Fund, covering topics including decarbonisation, innovative electrification in industry and hydrogen, cleantech manufacturing and mid-sized pilots.

Projects will be assessed by independent evaluators based on their level of innovation, potential to avoid greenhouse gas emissions, operational, financial and technical maturity, scaling up potential and cost efficiency.

The funding is open for projects located in EU member states, Iceland and Norway until 16th March 2023.

Promising projects that are not sufficiently mature for a grant may benefit from project development assistance by the European Investment Bank (EIB)

The Innovation Fund is financed by revenues from the auctioning of allowances from the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) and has already held two large-scale calls, awarding €1.1 billion (£0.96bn) and €1.8 billion (£1.57bn).

Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans said: “Today more than ever, we need to boost innovation and scale up technological solutions that tackle the climate crisis and bring Europe energy sovereignty. The faster we do so, the quicker we will become immune to Russian energy blackmail.

“With this new call of €3 billion, the EU Innovation Fund will support even more clean tech projects than before, speeding up the replacement of fossil fuels in hard-to-decarbonise industries and accelerating the uptake of renewable hydrogen in the EU market.”