EU awards €3.4bn of ETS revenue to 77 net-zero projects

The European Commission selected 77 net-zero technology projects across 23 countries to receive €3.4 billion ($3.8 billion) from EU Emissions Trading System revenue, ESG Today reported on October 20. The Commission said the projects will enable a 290 million tonne CO2e reduction in their first decade of operation.

Twelve large-scale decarbonization projects were allocated nearly half the total, around €1.6 billion, covering advanced decarbonized fuels, industrial carbon management, chemicals, iron and steel, aviation and critical raw materials. Seventeen medium-scale projects requested €458 million; 20 small-scale projects requested €124 million. Twelve clean-tech manufacturing projects requested nearly €900 million for components including heat pumps, solar panels, electrolyzers and electric-vehicle batteries. Sixteen pilots requested around €394 million, spanning aviation, wind, ocean and maritime energy, nuclear, DACCS, hydrogen, chemicals and refineries. Those five groups add up to 77 selected projects.

Two of the selections are firsts for the programme, according to the report: a small modular nuclear reactor project and a direct air carbon capture and storage project.

The awards are drawn from allowance revenue rather than the EU budget. On the report's rounded figures, the twelve large-scale awards average roughly €133 million each, while the 20 small-scale selections average about €6 million. It is the same recycling mechanism this publication described in August, when Greece's €4.8 billion Social Climate Fund plan drew €3.6 billion from emissions-allowance revenue — one stream into social infrastructure, this one into technology.