The European Commission is seeking applications for the Innovative land-based and offshore renewable energy technologies and their integration into the energy system.

Proposals should address one of the following two subtopics and clearly indicate which subtopic is addressed:

• Subtopic 1 (Research and Innovation action): Development of land-based renewable energy technologies and their integration into the energy system: Projects should develop innovative solutions for either district heating and/or cooling systems or CHP, which allow satisfying a significant or possibly total share of the energy demand by means of combining different highly efficient land-based renewable energy sources. Projects should combine at least two or more renewable energy sources and/or two or more renewable energy technologies. The seasonal loads of the DHC or daily/seasonal loads of the CHP system (for example when coupled to an industrial process), and the daily/seasonal availability of the renewable energy sources have to be properly taken into account. Projects should assess the sustainability of the proposed solutions in environmental, social and economic terms.
• Subtopic 2 (Innovation Action): Demonstration of innovative technologies to enable future large scale deployment of offshore renewable energy: Projects must demonstrate at sea critical offshore renewable energy innovations considering the efficiency, reliability, scalability, sustainability and circularity that is needed in all areas of the offshore renewable energy system, notably:
• Offshore renewable energy power generating systems: innovative integrated offshore (floating) wind, wave, tidal and/or solar systems, on a floating or fixed-bottom substructure, considering the varied subsea and metocean conditions. And/or
• Grid infrastructure: real life demonstration of innovative Direct Current (DC), AC/DC hybrid technologies and systems as a supporting step towards large offshore DC, AC/DC hybrid grids (e.g. multi-vendor Multi-Terminal HVDC (MT HVDC) systems, grid forming converter, HVDC diode rectifiers, Modular Multilevel Converters (MMC), DC Circuit Breaker (DCCB); DC/DC converter and DC/power hub) and their control and management systems; for floating renewable energy technologies: innovative dynamic inter-device/inter-array cables and connections to converter stations at sea or offshore hubs.

Expected Impact

• Subtopic 1: Development of land-based renewable energy technologies and their integration into the energy system: Projects will bring clear benefits in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, air pollutants emissions and the use of fossil fuels. They will also demonstrate that an affordable, reliable, secure and flexible DHC and/or CHP systems based on onshore, local renewables can be designed to be adaptive and scalable according to the energy demand.
• Subtopic 2: Demonstration of innovative technologies to enable future large scale deployment of offshore renewable energy: The project should clearly demonstrate all potential impacts on the future roll-out of large-scale deployment of offshore renewable energy, the market perspective considering existing or alternative (decentralised) systems and all other environmental (like GHG reductions), ecological, social and economic impacts along the value chain.

It should increase incentives for investment and economies of scale in offshore bringing down costs and create new business models and services.

Funding Information

• Subtopic 1: The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 3 to 6 million would allow this challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.
• Subtopic 2: The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 20 to 35 million would allow the specific challenge to be addressed appropriately.

Eligibility Criteria

• A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon 2020 projects.
• To be considered admissible, a proposal/application must be:
  • submitted in the electronic submission system before the deadline given in the call conditions or rules of contest;
  • readable, accessible and printable;
  • complete and include the requested administrative data, the proposal description, and any obligatory supporting documents specified in the call/contest;
  • include a draft plan for the exploitation and dissemination of the results, unless otherwise specified in the call conditions. The draft plan is not required for proposals at the first stage of two-stage procedures.

For more information, visit European Commission.