The European Commission released a call for proposals with deadline 10^th of March, 2021. Projects must have a total capital expenditure between EUR 2 500 000 and EUR 7 500 000 to be eligible. The grants will be provided as lump sums. In addition, project development assistance (PDA) will be provided in the form of services to some projects by the European Investment Bank.

All following activities can be funded under this call:

• activities that support innovation in low-carbon technologies and processes in sectors listed in Annex I to the ETS Directive, including environmentally-safe carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) that contributes substantially to mitigating climate change, as well as substitute products,
• activities that help stimulate the construction and operation of projects that aim at the environmentally-safe capture and geological storage of CO2 (CCS),
• activities that help stimulate the construction and operation of innovative renewable energy and energy storage technologies.

Applicants must be legal persons from an eligible country. Both single applicant or consortium are eligible.

Applicants should consider that the following conditions must be fulfilled in relation to the duration of their proposed actions:

• the project must reach financial close as soon as possible and no later than four years (48 months) after grant signature;
• the default monitoring and reporting period once the project has entered into operation shall be 3 years; longer periods can be accepted but these must be justified by the applicant and may not exceed 10 years. It is expected that projects enter into operation in a reasonable timeframe after financial close (e.g. 2-3 years);
• applicants must have stable and sufficient resources to maintain their activity throughout the period for which the grant is awarded;
• applicants must carry out two calculations according to the methodology for calculation of GHG emission avoidance provided in the Methodology for GHG emission avoidance calculation for relative and absolute GHG emission avoidance which are main criteria.

Out of the proposals that are not invited for grant preparation, those proposals are considered for project development assistance that:

• meet the minimum requirements under greenhouse gas emissions avoidance and degree of innovation criteria; and
• are awarded at least 50% of total points under the project maturity criterion; and
• are considered by evaluators as having the potential for improving their maturity through specific project development assistance.

Up to 40 proposals may be eligible for the project development assistance to the European Investment Bank (the EIB).

The maximum grant amount is fixed for each project on the basis of the relevant costs and covers up to 60% of the relevant costs of projects. The grant will be paid in lump sums. Payments will not depend on the costs actually incurred but on the proper implementation of the action, achievement of the results and completion of the work packages. Applicants will indicate the requested maximum grant amount and the estimated lumpsum contributions broken down by participant and work package as part of the application. The applicants must ensure that the portion of the grant amount requested to be paid upon the financial close or upon reaching a specific milestone preceding financial close does not exceed 40% of the total grant amount requested.

Székely Family and Co. Kft. strongly encourages all members and future members to consider submission of a proposal and help us make our environment sustainable.