Cost-effective Next-generation Batteries For Long-duration Stationary Storage (Batt4EU Partnership)
HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions
Basic Information
- Identifier
- HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D2-02
- Programme
- Cluster 5 Call 01-2025 (2-stage) (WP 2025)
- Programme Period
- 2021 - 2027
- Status
- Closed (31094503)
- Opening Date
- May 6, 2025
- Deadline
- September 3, 2025
- Deadline Model
- two-stage
- Budget
- €15,000,000
- Min Grant Amount
- €5,000,000
- Max Grant Amount
- €5,000,000
- Expected Number of Grants
- 3
- Keywords
- HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D2-02HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage
Description
Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:
- Advanced battery materials aiming at storage duration from 10 hours to seasonal storage are developed, thus contributing to the Renewable Energy targets set by RePowerEU;
- Minimised use of Critical Raw Materials (CRM) in line with the EU's Critical Raw Materials Act[1] to enhance economic base, reduce dependencies and ensure competitiveness in green and digital transitions;
- Development of viable alternatives to the current state of the art for battery technologies and to other seasonal storage devices in terms of cost, efficiency, safety, lifetime and (environmental) sustainability;
- Improved longevity of energy storage systems;
- Battery technologies with minimal required auxiliary services, storage in a wide range of State-of-Charges (SOCs), and minimal voltage slippage.
This topic aims to promote the development of materials that are recyclable, with low environmental impact, safe and with a potential for large-scale manufacturing. To the extent possible, the safety and sustainability of developed materials are expected be assessed in alignment with the Commission Recommendation on safe and sustainable by design chemicals and materials[2].
Projects are expected to demonstrate credible commercial and technical paths that are able to satisfy all the following points:
- Energy storage system cost (CAPEX) lower than 50 €/kWh;
- Projected lifetime of 20 years with minimised self-discharge in operating and ambient conditions typical of the selected application;
- Minimum round-trip efficiency of 50% at energy storage system (AC) level and 75% at cell level;
- Large-scale deployment in the long term of reliable materials supply and manufacturing of cell or reaction stack.
Projects are expected to focus on technologies that are presently at a low Technology Readiness Level. Lithium-ion, vanadium-based redox flow, sodium-ion using liquid electrolyte, molten sodium-sulphur and other commercialised technologies are out of scope of this topic.
Taking the above into account, the scope of the topic is technology neutral. In case the following battery chemistries or configurations are chosen, the following points must be addressed:
- For metal-air chemistries: reduce sensitivity to impurities of gases;
- For multivalent chemistries: develop electrolytes with reduced corrosivity and improved compatibility with other cell components and housing;
- For materials for redox flow chemistries: develop redox couples with minimised share of Critical Raw Materials (CRM)[1];
- For Potassium batteries: address rate performance limitations due to potassium ion diffusivity and electrolyte decomposition due to high K+/K redox.
Projects are encouraged to implement calibrated and validated computational models and/or (generative) artificial intelligence methods for materials discovery and cell design.
Whenever the expected exploitation of project results entails developing, creating, manufacturing and marketing a product or process, or in creating and providing a service, the plan for the exploitation and dissemination of results must include a strategy for such exploitation. The exploitation plans should include preliminary plans for scalability, commercialisation, and deployment (feasibility study, business plan).
Proposals could consider the involvement of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC)[4] whose contribution could consist of performing experimental research on battery performance and/or safety. For further information on the JRC’s possible contribution to the projects, please, search for additional publicly available information on the JRC’s website (EU Science Hub) on the NCP portal, or request specific information from the JRC ([email protected])
JRC shall assure that all the other applicants receive the same information on the JRC’s possible contribution to the project (e.g., via the topic-specific FAQs under the Funding and Tenders Portal).
Projects are expected to collaborate and contribute to the activities of the Coordination and Support Action defined under the topic HORIZON-CL5-2025-D2-02-06.
To strengthen the European battery ecosystem, projects are expected to use materials, products and equipment produced in EU Member States and countries associated to Horizon Europe, unless it is demonstrated that no valid option exists. The procurement strategies should be described in the proposal, especially and to the furthest extent possible the place of production of the elements.
This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on Batteries (Batt4EU). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on the results to the European Partnership on Batteries (Batt4EU) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs.
[1] Regulation - EU - 2024/1252 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)
[3] Regulation - EU - 2024/1252 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)
[4] https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/laboratories-z/battery-energy-storage-testing_en
Destination & Scope
This Destination contributes directly to the Strategic Plan’s Key Strategic Orientations ‘Green transition’, ‘Digital transition’ and ‘A more resilient, competitive, inclusive and democratic Europe’.
In line with the Strategic Plan, the overall expected impact of this Destination is to contribute to the “Facilitating a clean and sustainable transition of the energy and transport sectors towards climate neutrality through cross-cutting solutions”.
This Destination covers thematic areas which are cross-cutting by nature and can provide key solutions for climate, energy and mobility applications. In line with the scope of cluster 5 such areas are batteries, hydrogen[1], communities and cities[2] and others. Although these areas are very distinct in terms of challenges, stakeholder communities and expected impacts, they have their cross-cutting nature as a unifying feature and are therefore grouped, if not addressed in other places of this work programme, under this Destination.
The main impacts to be generated by topics under this Destination are:
Batteries
- Increased competitiveness and strategic autonomy of EU Battery sector while maximising sustainability.
- Enhanced local and circular supply chains by reducing dependency on critical raw materials and upscaling processing capacity, also for recycled materials.
- An integrated European battery sector for high performance batteries, from design to manufacturing and all the way to end of life, reducing environmental impact.
- Improved resilience of EU energy system and facilitated integration of renewable energy sources through application of energy storage.
- Affordable and reliable batteries to boost the market penetration of Electric Vehicles and storage systems.
Cities and Communities
This topic is for continuation of the Driving Urban Transition (DUT) co-funded partnership to assist cities in their sustainability and climate neutrality transitions. The main impacts expected are:
- Strengthen EU as a role model for R&I and cooperation with international cities to align strategies and support the role of DUT as co-lead of the Urban Transitions Mission (UTM) under Mission Innovation (MI);
- Innovative urban governance, policy, and decision-making engaging citizens in the city making process;
- Integration of mobility and transport services, and their alignment with citizens’ needs;
- Climate-neutral, safe, inclusive and liveable neighbourhoods, towns, cities and urban services for the citizens’ well-being;
- Empowerment of all actors such as local authorities, business, civil society, knowledge institutions and citizens, being engaged in climate-neutrality transitions;
- Evidence-based implementation of the European Green Deal, the Urban Agenda for the EU and other urban-relevant policies and strategies.
[1] The bulk of activities are supported by the Institutional Partnership ‘Clean Hydrogen’.
[2] Communities and cities are mainly supported under the Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, and through the co-funded Partnership ‘Driving Urban Transition’, implemented in this work programme as a grant to identified beneficiary.
Eligibility & Conditions
General conditions
1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout
2. Eligible Countries
described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.
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 Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.
3. Other Eligible Conditions
If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used).
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) may participate as member of the consortium selected for funding as a beneficiary with zero funding, or as an associated partner. The JRC will not participate in the preparation and submission of the proposal - see General Annex B.
The following exceptions apply: subject to restrictions for the protection of European communication networks.
described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion
described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes.
5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds
are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes.
5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes
are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual.
5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement
described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes.
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants
Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum as defined in the Decision of 7 July 2021 authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027) – and in actions under the Research and Training Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (2021-2025) [[This decision is available on the Funding and Tenders Portal, in the reference documents section for Horizon Europe, under ‘Simplified costs decisions’ or through this link: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/guidance/ls-decision_he_en.pdf]].
described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes.
Specific conditions
described in the [specific topic of the Work Programme]
Application and evaluation forms and model grant agreement (MGA):
Application form templates — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System
Standard application form (HE RIA IA Stage 2)
Evaluation form templates — will be used with the necessary adaptations
Standard evaluation form (HE RIA IA Stage 2)
Guidance
Model Grant Agreements (MGA)
Call-specific instructions
Additional documents:
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 8. Climate, Energy and Mobility
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 14. General Annexes
HE Framework Programme 2021/695
HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764
EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509
Decision authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment
EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual
Frequently Asked Questions About Cost-effective Next-generation Batteries For Long-duration Stationary Storage (Batt4EU Partnership)
Support & Resources
Online Manual is your guide on the procedures from proposal submission to managing your grant.
Horizon Europe Programme Guide contains the detailed guidance to the structure, budget and political priorities of Horizon Europe.
Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ – find the answers to most frequently asked questions on submission of proposals, evaluation and grant management.
Research Enquiry Service – ask questions about any aspect of European research in general and the EU Research Framework Programmes in particular.
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CEN-CENELEC Research Helpdesk and ETSI Research Helpdesk – the European Standards Organisations advise you how to tackle standardisation in your project proposal.
The European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for their recruitment – consult the general principles and requirements specifying the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers, employers and funders of researchers.
Partner Search help you find a partner organisation for your proposal.
Latest Updates
Generalised feedback HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage
In order to best ensure equal treatment, successful stage 1 applicants do not receive the evaluation summary reports (ESRs) for their proposals, but this generalised feedback with information and tips for preparing the full proposal.
Information & tips
Main shortcomings found in the stage 1 evaluation of topic HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D2-02:
- Several proposals failed to appropriately address the expected outcomes. Most proposals focused on how the technology would be developed, without any reference to how its performance would be quantified.
- Several proposals did propose credible pathways to achieve the expected outcomes specified in the work programme. However, they failed to demonstrate the likely scale and significance of the proposed project’s contributions, specifically in relation to cost, improved longevity and minimal voltage slippage.
- All proposals addressed key requirements such as aiming at “storage duration from 10 hours to seasonal storage”. However, most proposals focussed on longevity and failed to adequately consider low cycling rates, or long idle periods.
Main shortcomings found in the stage 1 evaluation of topic HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D3-23:
- Several proposals failed to demonstrate the availability of the data sources, which are essential for the project execution.
- Several proposals did not credibly propose “a framework for decent working conditions, most notably essential skills…”, as an important transversal value chain component. Also, some proposals failed to address the “Study on clean energy R&I opportunities”, which is also a requirement in the Call Text.
- Some proposals were insufficiently specific about the individual TRLs for the key components which support the overall technology (solution) addressed in the proposal.
- In terms of expected impact, several proposals did not propose credible pathways to achieve the expected outcomes specified in the work programme, or substantiate the likely scale and significance of the contributions.
In your stage 2 proposal, you have a chance to address or clarify these issues.
Please bear in mind that your full proposal will now be evaluated more in-depth and possibly by a new group of outside experts.
Please make sure that your full proposal is consistent with your short outline proposal. It may NOT differ substantially. The project must stay the same.
EVALUATION results
Published: 06.05.2025
Deadline: 03.09.2025
Available budget: EUR 15.00 million for HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D2-02, and EUR 9.00 million for HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D3-23
In accordance with General Annex F of the Work Programme, the evaluation of the first-stage proposals was made looking only at the criteria ‘Excellence’ and ‘Impact’. The threshold for both criteria was 4. The overall threshold (applying to the sum of the two individual scores) was set for each topic/type of action with separate call-budget-split at a level that allowed the total requested budget of proposals admitted to stage 2 be as close as possible to 2 times the available budget (and not below 1.5 times the budget):
- HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D2-02: 8.50 points
- HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D3-23: 9.00 points
The results of the evaluation for each topic are as follows:
HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D2-02 | HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D3-23 | |
Number of proposals submitted (including proposals transferred from or to other calls) | 75 | 29 |
Number of inadmissible proposals | 0 | 0 |
Number of ineligible proposals | 3 | 1 |
Number of above-threshold proposals | 6 | 9 |
Total budget requested for above-threshold proposals | EUR 29.25 million | EUR 26.94 million |
Ranking distribution | ||
Number of proposals with scores lower or equal to 10 and higher or equal to 9 | 5 | 9 |
Number of proposals with scores equal to 8.5 | 1 | 0 |
Number of proposals with scores equal to 8 | 2 (below overall threshold) | 0 |
Summary of observer report:
This is the Observer assessment of the first stage evaluation of the Call for proposals HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage with a deadline on 03/09/2025. The quality of the evaluation was very high.
It was conducted fully remotely, with remote evaluation and virtual central meetings for the two topics HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D2-02 and HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D3-23, both RIA-LS topics as type of action, for a total of 100 eligible proposals and for an indicative budget of EUR 24,00 million.
A total of 42 experts, well balanced in gender, countries, and type of institutions of origin were selected, as evaluators, rapporteurs, and quality controllers, tasked to evaluate proposals, to write Consensus Reports, and to guarantee the quality of the Consensus Reports, respectively.
The Observer exchanged regular emails with the Call Coordinator and received all written information and invitations needed to conduct the observation remotely, and through central virtual meetings.
The evaluation is a complex task, very well conducted, thanks to the clear written procedures, and the involvement of experienced and well-prepared staff, and to the good quality of the experts.
The evaluation process was very well designed and implemented by the staff, that in conjunction with mature IT tools like SEP, ensured a high degree of transparency.
The central virtual evaluation exercise, held online using Webex, was planned and conducted with a good level of organisation and efficiency and proceeded in a timely manner, both the Consensus and the Final Panel Meetings. The latter were attended by two selected experts and the rapporteur and quality controller from each evaluation panel, preserving the overall transparency.
The evaluation process was carried out in full accordance with the Horizon Europe rules, procedures and documents and compared with national and international evaluation procedures, can be considered an excellent standard.
We recently informed the applicants about the evaluation results for their proposals.
For questions, please contact the Research Enquiry Service.
PROPOSAL NUMBERS
Call HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage (first stage) has closed on the 03/09/2025 (17:00).
104 proposals have been submitted.
The breakdown per topic is:
- HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D2-02 (RIA): 75 proposals
- HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage-D3-23 (RIA): 29 proposals
Evaluation results are expected to be communicated in December 2025.
Please note that the deadline of all 2 topics under call HORIZON-CL5-2025-01-Two-Stage has been postponed from 02 September 2025 to 03 September 2025 - 17:00:00 Brussels local time.