European funding for energy

The production, availability and access to different forms of energy is central to Europe’s continued economic development and prosperity. This puts the European Commission in a difficult balancing position: on the one hand it is clear that fossil fuels are likely to continue to be key to meeting the energy demand from European businesses and consumers, and – on the other hand – the EU has high targets for reducing the harmful effects of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, stimulate the uptake of renewable energy sources as well as to reduce oil and gas energy imports from less stable regions outside the EU.

For you as an organization, high development and investment costs and uncertainty about economic viability of new technologies put you in a difficult position too. The availability of grants and loans from the European Union (EU) could be the catalyst for you to make that important decision.

PNO can help you understand the motives and priorities of the EU on energy and prepare you and your project to take full advantage of available funding programmes.

As the EU has made the energy sector one of its main policy priorities for the coming years, it is setting aside large sums of money to financially support projects related to:

• Ensuring security of energy supply
• Reducing dependency on imported fuels
• Increasing capacity across the full supply chain
• Reducing reliance on traditional fossil fuels
• Reducing overall energy consumption
• stimulating the technical development, introduction and uptake of renewable energy sources, particularly onshore/offshore (deep sea) wind, photovoltaics and biomass.

In the ambitious strategy paper called “2020 in 2020”, the European Commission confirms its commitment to reduce GHG emissions by at least 20% in 2020, whilst also making Europe the world’s competitive leader in renewable energy technology. The “20 in 2020” document is supported by the so-called “Strategic Energy Technology Plan” (SET-Plan), which shows the types of energy research and investments that qualify to receive the Commission’s financial support. Until 2020, the European Commission intends to spend an additional €50 million (on top of the already reserved 30 billion) on grants and loans to organizations willing to match their business strategy with the EU-priorities.

Added value of PNO

PNO helps you understand the EU’s energy policy priorities and shows you how they are linked to your organisation’s internal development strategy. We can also match your strategic project(s) to EU funding requirements, or help you build (or become part of) an international project consortium (aa prerequisite for accessing many research and investment programmes). In addition, we alert you to EC policy trends so you can anticipate on new fundable developments. Finally, PNO has a good track record on bringing your grant-related priorities to the European Commission in order to get the interest of your business or sector on the EC’s political funding agenda.

PNO capacity

Working alongside our local offices in 12 EU-countries, PNO has a dedicated team of specialists helping European businesses, sector-organisations and other NGO’s to understand and make use of the many European funding programmes for the energy sector. Based on solid knowledge of the European energy policies, the European decision-making institutions and – naturally – the energy sector itself, our aim is to pro-actively identify opportunities which match your business development strategy and support you in positioning your energy project(s) in such a way that they become eligible for EU financial support.

We do this by investing time in your organization and the people that drive it. We also invest time in understanding your full supply chain, because many times it is there where the fundable innovation is created which allows your organization to profit and grow. As international cooperation is important for almost all EU-funding, we can also help you make that important connection to other organizations across Europe. In all, we help you set up a process through which the question on whether public EU-funding could be available, becomes embedded into your existing research and financial processes.

More information?

Would you like more information about the subject or know more about the possibilities for your company? Please contact us.