NER 300 Decision on demonstration support for CCS and innovative renewables
The NER 300 is 300 million EU ETS allowances set aside for supporting 8 CCS and 34 renewable energy projects in the EU. A greater or lesser number of projects may be funded depending on the cost of the proposals.
The European Commission will launch 2 calls for proposals. The 1st call will be in Q3 2010 for project selection at end 2011 (200m allowances) and the 2nd call in 2012 for project selection at end 2013 (100m allowances.) Member States will be asked to assess whether projects meet the eligibility criteria in the Decision and provide a shortlist of projects that they support to the European Investment Bank (EIB.) The EIB will undertake financial and technical due diligence and make recommendations for selection to the European Commission, who will rank and select projects.
The European Commission estimates the allowances may be worth between €4.5bn (at a carbon price of €15 per allowance) and €9bn (at a carbon price of €30 per allowance.) The EIB will sell the allowances.
Under the 2 calls, each Member State is entitled to at least 1 project, but not more than 3 (excluding transboundary projects.) In terms of renewable energy projects, one in each defined technology sub-category with thresholds is eligible (see Decision below for full list.)
The Decision provides for Member States to choose which projects they put forward to the EU NER 300 selection process. Following publication of the call for proposals by the European Commission (expected Sept/Oct 2010), Member States make known their national selection process and applications are to be made to the national authority who required to assess all applications against the criteria in Article 6 and undertake a national pre-selection.
A copy of the Decision and presentations by the European Commission on NER 300 can be found below.
A presentation from the DG Research (European Commission) on the NER 300 is attached here
A presentation from DG Climate Action (European Commission) on NER 300 is attached here
European Commission Decision
The European Commission under its Decision is expected to issue a call in Quarter 3 2010. Following this call, the national process will be outlined.