Europe’s renewable energy industry associations, coordinated by Ocean Energy Europe, have published a position paper which establishes principles for the new Innovation Fund, the successor to the NER300 programme, to be set up as part of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) reform.
“NER300 addresses the so-called ‘valley of death’ gap between R&D funding and revenue support, bringing forward innovative ocean energy pilot projects. With the Innovation Fund, we now have a chance to make this system more effective. The main financial barrier facing demonstration projects is sourcing upfront finance, and the Innovation Fund will have the most impact by addressing this,” OEE Policy Director Jacopo Moccia said in a statement. OEE is coordinating the common position of the RES industry to ensure that the new Innovation Fund is as efficient and fit-for-purpose as possible.
The European Parliament is currently preparing its position on ETS reform, which will form the basis of its negotiating stance with the Commission, as it is a co-decision procedure. In turn, the European Commission is looking to use part of the excess emission certificates from the ETS (400 million of them) to raise between EUR 4.5 billion and EUR 11 billion for innovative renewable energy and industrial projects.
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