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Disruptive PDA – Technical Assistance to advance market boundaries for sustainable energy investments

LIFE Project Grants

Basic Information

Identifier: LIFE-2021-CET-PDA
Programme: LIFE Clean Energy Transition
Programme Period: 2021 - 2027
Status: Closed (31094503)
Opening Date: July 13, 2021
Deadline: January 12, 2022
Deadline Model: single-stage
Budget: €4,000,000
Min Grant Amount: –
Max Grant Amount: –
Expected Number of Grants: –
Keywords: LIFE-2021-CET-PDALIFE-2021-CET

Description

Expected Impact:

Delivery of a scalable financing solution for sustainable energy investment projects
Investments in sustainable energy triggered by the project (cumulative, in million Euro of investments). Every million Euro of EU support should trigger at least 15 million Euro of investments in sustainable energy, with a particular emphasis on private sector funds, and, hence, ensure a significant leverage effect. In case projects address exclusively investments in residential buildings, the triggered investments should be at least 10 million Euro for every million Euro of EU support
Primary energy savings/renewable energy generation triggered by the project (in GWh/year)
Reduction of GHG emissions triggered by the project (in tCO2eq/year)
Increased skills and capacity in project aggregators to deliver further sustainable energy investment
Jobs created through the sustainable energy investments
Where relevant, improved health-related indicators such as improved indoor air quality or physical activity

Objective:

Project Development Assistance (PDA) offers technical assistance to project developers to undertake energy efficiency and renewable energy investments of ambition and scale.

The topic aims to support innovators across Europe to develop innovative solutions that are mobilising private capital, blending public with private financing, setting up long-term and scalable financial instruments and at the same time overcoming legal and structural barriers whilst delivering a highly ambitious sustainable energy project pipeline. Projects are expected to demonstrate innovative approaches in mobilising investments, advancing market boundaries or changing organisational and regulatory structures. In doing so they disrupt existing markets and existing processes.

These solutions should contribute significantly to paving the way towards the 2050 decarbonisation targets for Europe. The European Green Deal’s Renovation Wave is a key driver for a refurbished and improved building stock in the EU that will help pave the way for a decarbonised and clean energy system.

A range of very innovative solutions with regard to the financing and mobilisation of investments were demonstrated in past H2020 PDA projects, which helped to shift market boundaries and demonstrate practical application of ingenious, disruptive solutions. For example, a forfaiting fund using private investments, which is scalable across Europe has been set up to foster deep retrofitting of hard-to-treat multi-family buildings^[1]. Another example is the development of a revolving loan fund combining ERDF funding, low interest-loans and Third Party Financing through ESCOs to deeply refurbish hospitals in the region^[2].

Scope:

Project Development Assistance (PDA) will be provided to public and private project promoters such as public authorities or their groupings, public/private infrastructure operators and bodies, energy service companies, retail chains, large property owners and services/industry. The action will support building technical, economic and legal expertise needed for project development. The launch of concrete investments is the final aim and deliverable of the project.

Proposals should demonstrate a clear showcase dimension in delivering innovative solutions accelerating sustainable energy investments across Europe:

in the development of scalable schemes with a particular focus on leveraging enhanced levels of private investment such as EPC, blended funds, financial instruments or innovative on-bill and on-tax payment schemes; and/or
in the organisational innovation for the mobilisation of the investment programmes such as setting up project development units, large-scale bundling and pooling of (mixed) assets, for example, at district, city or wider geographical level; and
in the ambition levels for energy savings and decarbonisation, such as deep renovation, NZEB standards, positive energy buildings or districts and/or highly energy efficient infrastructure.

Proposals could target sectors including:

existing residential buildings including large social housing operators
existing non-residential buildings of public or commercial owners
existing public infrastructure such as district heating/cooling networks, water/wastewater services
clean and energy efficient urban transport infrastructure and low emission mobility solutions including conversion of urban areas for soft mobility or non-motorised transport
industry and services, including SMEs
RES energy communities and other citizen led initiatives.

Applications may be submitted by a single applicant.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of a range of EUR 0.5 million to EUR 2 million would allow the specific objectives to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

[1] https://sharex.lv/

[2] http://www.marteproject.eu/en

View on EU Portal →

Eligibility & Conditions

Conditions

Conditions

1. Admissibility conditions: described in section 5 of the call document

Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System

2. Eligible countries: described in section 6 of of the call document

3. Other eligibility conditions: described in section 6 of the call document

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in section 7 of the call document

Submission and evaluation processes: described section 8 of the call document and the Online Manual

Award criteria, scoring and thresholds: described in section 9 of the call document

Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in section 4 of the call document

6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in section 10 of the call document

Documents

Call documents:

Call document

Standard application form — call-specific application form is available in the Submission System

Detailed budget table

Participant information

Table of investments

LIFE General MGA v1.0

LIFE Work Programme 2021-2024

LIFE Regulation 2021/783

EU Financial Regulation 2018/1046

Info session recordings and presentations

Support & Resources

Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ – Submission of proposals.

IT Helpdesk – Contact the IT helpdesk for questions such as forgotten passwords, access rights and roles, technical aspects of submission of proposals, etc.

Online Manual – Step-by-step online guide through the Portal processes from proposal preparation and submission to reporting on your on-going project. Valid for all 2021-2027 programmes.

Latest Updates

Last Changed: May 16, 2022

Topic code	Call Topic	Budget (M EUR)
LIFE-2021-CET-LOCAL	Technical support to clean energy transition plans and strategies in municipalities and regions	7
LIFE-2021-CET-POLICY	Towards an effective implementation of key legislation in the field of sustainable energy	6
LIFE-2021-CET-GOV	Multilevel climate and energy dialogue to deliver the energy Governance	5,5
LIFE-2021-CET-BUILDRENO	Large-scale rollout of industrialised deep renovation solutions	6
LIFE-2021-CET-AUDITS	Uptake of energy audits recommendations for the energy transition of companies	5,5
LIFE-2021-CET-VALUECHAIN	Fostering sustainable energy uptake along the whole value chain in industry and services	4
LIFE-2021-CET-BUILDSKILLS	BUILD UP Skills – rebooting the National Platforms and Roadmaps	6
LIFE-2021-CET-COOLING	Facing the increase in cooling demand of buildings in the coming years	4
LIFE-2021-CET-SMARTSERV	Establish innovative business models and contractual schemes for smart and sector-integrating energy services	4
LIFE-2021-CET-SMARTREADY	Creating the conditions for a global improvement of smart readiness of European buildings	6
LIFE-2021-CET-MAINSTREAM	Mainstreaming sustainable energy finance and integrating energy performance in EU sustainable finance criteria and standards	5,5
LIFE-2021-CET-INNOFIN	Innovative financing schemes for sustainable energy investments	5,5
LIFE-2021-CET-HOMERENO	Integrated Home Renovation Services	6
LIFE-2021-CET-HOMERECOM	EU community of "Integrated Home Renovation Services" practitioners	2
LIFE-2021-CET-COALREGIONS	Community-driven clean energy transition in coal, peat and oil-shale regions	3
LIFE-2021-CET-PDA	Disruptive PDA – Technical Assistance to advance market boundaries for sustainable energy investments	6
LIFE-2021-CET-ENERPOV	Addressing building related interventions for vulnerable districts	5,5
LIFE-2021-CET-ENERCOM	Developing support mechanisms for energy communities and other citizen-led initiatives in the field of sustainable energy	7

The results of the evaluation are as follows:

Call LIFE-2021-CET:

Number of proposals submitted (including proposals transferred from or to other calls): 171