Based on the provisions of the Article 7 and Part IV of Annex to the CEF Regulation, CB RES projects shall promote cross-border cooperation between Member States in the field of planning, development and the cost-effective exploitation of renewable energy sources, as well as facilitate their integration through energy storage facilities and with the aim of contributing to the Union’s long term decarbonisation strategy, completing the internal energy market and enhancing the security of supply. Both topics under this call aim to support and contribute to the implementation of CB RES projects included in the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2022/2202.

This topic refers to projects for studies contributing to the implementation of a CB RES project. As per Article 2 (r) of the CEF Regulation, studies means activities needed to prepare cross-border RES project implementation, such as preparatory, mapping, feasibility, evaluation, testing and validation studies, including in the form of software, and any other technical support measure, including prior action to define and develop a CB RES project and decide on its financing, such as exploration of the sites concerned and preparation of the financial package. A study could cover in depth investigation and exploration of the risk factors of a project e.g. safety, technical, environmental, regulatory, economic or legal issues to determine whether and how the project should be implemented.

While CEF Energy does not finance technological development, in justified cases, studies can include also pilot projects, such as pilot plants, that are eventually needed to test technologies that are at TRL 7-8, innovative processes or techniques, including other necessary components for the project. Such pilot projects should be strictly related to eligible components of the CB RES project.

For more mature projects, a study may have the objective to move the project through the development stage to a Final Investment Decision (FID) and may include Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) studies, technical design studies, geophysical surveys, seabed surveys, tasks related to territorial planning, environmental assessments and comparable studies as applicable. Activities may also include stakeholder engagement and procurement for the construction phase. A study could also be used to set out in detail the operational aspects of a cooperation, such as the precise legal set up of the financing arrangement e.g. the cross-border tender or the regulatory set up of the cooperation project, or the arrangement on the allocation of costs and benefits between the participating counties. Only projects contributing to CB RES projects as identified in the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2022/2202 shall be eligible for support through EU financial aid in the form of grants. While the focus of the study should concern the energy generation component of the project, in the case of projects with additional (non-RES generation) elements such as grid infrastructure, storage facilities, conversion of the renewable electricity, studies may also choose to cover those elements as well as the interplay between the different elements and cover the complete project set-up, if it is justified by the applicants that the effectiveness of the study will be higher when it captures the project set-up as a whole.