The European Commission yesterday awarded €1 billion funding to 19 projects to fight climate change under the second call of the so-called NER 300 funding programme.
The funding for the projects comes from revenues resulting from the sale of emission allowances in the EU Emissions Trading System. This makes the polluters the driving force behind developing new low-carbon initiatives.
The funding will be used to demonstrate technologies that will subsequently help to scale-up production from renewable energy sources across the EU as well as those that can remove and store carbon emissions. The projects awarded co-financing cover a range of technologies − bioenergy, concentrated solar power, geothermal power, photovoltaics, offshore wind power, ocean energy, smart grids and, for the first time, carbon capture and storage (CCS).
The 19 projects will be hosted in 12 EU Member States: Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for Climate Action , said: “ With these first-of-a-kind projects, we will help protect the climate and make Europe less energy dependent. The €1 billion we are awarding today will leverage some additional €900 million of private investment. So that is almost €2 billion of investment in climate-friendly technologies here in Europe. This is a contribution to reducing Europe’s energy bill of more than €1 billion per day that we pay for our imported fossil fuels.”
Of the 19 awarded projects, five are proposed to be developed offshore:
Spain – BALEA – Wind power (EUR 33.4 Mln)
The project comprises two 5 MW and two 8 MW wind turbines placed on floating foundations. The wind turbines will be placed on either a tension leg platform or a semi-submersible structure. The total capacity of the wind power project is 26 MW. The project is expected to be located in the Bay of Biscay off the coast of Armintza in Spain.
Spain – FloCan5 – Wind power (EUR 34 Mln)
The project is a floating offshore wind farm consisting of five 5 MW wind turbines with a total capacity of 25 MW with floating moored foundations, internal grid and grid connection to an onshore substation. The foundation is a semi-submersible concrete construction. The project is expected to be located at 1.5–3.7 km from the south-eastern coast off the island of Gran Canaria, in water depths of between 30 and 300 m.
Portugal – SWELL – Ocean energy (EUR 9.1 Mln)
The project concerns a large-scale, grid-connected wave farm with a capacity of 5.6 MW that will be built on the coast a few miles north of the Peniche Peninsula, central Portugal. It will consist of sixteen 350 kW modules. Oscillating Wave Surge Converters will be placed on the seabed and only the top part of the flap will be surface piercing.
France – NEMO – Ocean energy (EUR 72.1 Mln)
The project is a 16 MWe floating ocean thermal energy conversion system. It is expected to be mounted within a floating barge moored some 5 km off the west coast of Martinique, with export cable landfall by the Bellefontaine oil-fired, thermal power plant. It aims to deliver approximately 395 GWh in the first five years of operation.
Ireland – WestWave – Ocean energy (EUR 23.3 Mln)
The project will consist of a grid-connected array of five wave energy converters (WEC) installed within one km of an onshore site at Killard Point in County Clare, Ireland. The electrical power generation capacity of each WEC is 1 MWe giving an overall capacity of 5 MWe. The WEC, together with the hydraulic power take-off and shore based power train is being tested first at the European Marine Energy Centre site at a smaller scale of 0.8 MWe.
Source: European Commission, July 9, 2014; Image: Principle Power (Illustration)