SECTION I — Expression of interest by Member States and grant award procedure
Expression of interest by Member States
1. Every year, the Commission shall call on Member States to express their interest in participating as contributing and/or host Member State in grant award procedures organised by the mechanism and shall share with the Member States an indicative calendar covering the procedural steps from the expression of interest to the calls for proposal, as well as an indication of when the Commission intends to organise the next call for expression of interest.
2. Member States interested in participating as host Member State, and, where relevant, third countries in line with the requirements of Article 11 of Directive (EU) 2018/2001, shall provide the Commission at least with the following information:
(a)
maximum total capacity or renewable energy generated on the host Member State’s territory available to projects supported by the mechanism, including per technology and year, where applicable;
(b)
preferred technologies or end-use sectors;
(c)
maximum capacity or renewable energy generated by projects, per technology, where applicable;
(d)
any site or geographical restrictions, where applicable;
(e)
the requested minimum share of statistical benefits to be distributed to a host Member State in accodance with Article 27, per technology where applicable, including an estimation of the system integration cost;
(f)
indication per technology of the national regulatory regime applicable to project promoters with respect to distribution of grid costs;
(g)
any other preferences or restrictions, including environmental criteria, supported by an explanation.
3. Member States interested in participating as contributing Member State shall provide the Commission at least with the following information:
(a)
volumes of renewable energy generated, expressed in terms of kWh, that they intend to support through the mechanism and to benefit from in terms of statistical allocation;
(b)
an indicative maximum budget per kWh/kW that they are available to disburse for their statistical benefit;
(c)
maximum intended financial contribution in EUR to the financing mechanism per grant award procedure;
(d)
preference for technology-neutral, multi-technology, technology-specific, project-specific or end-use specefic grant award procedures, in accodance with the criteria laid down in Article 4(5) of Directive (EU) 2018/2001;
(e)
the requested minimum share of statistical benefits to be distributed to them in accordance with Article 27, per technology if applicable;
(f)
other preferences relevant to their financial contribution, including environmental criteria.
4. Without prejudice to Regulation (EC) 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 4 ) , the Commission shall not make public any of the information provided by a Member State as part of the expression of interest, except where expressly authorised by the Member State concerned.
5. The Commission shall take into account the information provided by the host and contributing Member States under this Article in view of designing the calls for proposals and in particular:
(a)
the objectives of the call;
(b)
the form of grants (investment or operating support);
(c)
the renewable energy generated during the support period or the capacity (kWh or kW) on which the award will be based;
(d)
the eligible technologies;
(e)
the ceiling price;
(f)
the site, geographical and regulatory restrictions and the environmental criteria;
(g)
the realisation period of the projects;
(h)
the distribution of statistical benefits between contributing and host Member States;
(i)
the award criteria for the financial support.
6. The Commission shall calculate the ceiling price referred to in paragraph 5 of this Article on the basis of, inter alia, the information provided by Member States during the expression of interest, relevant comparators such as results of past calls, cost studies, as well as results from modelling exercises where appropriate. The calculation will take into account the levelised cost of energy of the renewable energy technology, adjusted on a regular basis.
7. The Commission shall communicate to the Member States its intention to launch a call for proposals and the envisaged elements referred to in the previous two paragraphs before the launching of the call.
8. Member States may express views on the information notified by the Commission pursuant to the previous paragraph. Following review of these comments against the objectives of the mechanism, the Commission shall communicate to the Member States the final elements referred to in paragraphs 5 and 6.
Binding commitments by host Member States
1. Host Member States shall confirm to the Commission their irrevocable and unconditional commitment to participate in the mechanism in view of allowing installations located on their territory to receive support under the mechanism in line with the national regulatory regime within three months from receiving the information referred to in Article 7(8). That committment shall be binding.
2. As regards the requirements that must be fulfilled by projects in their territory in order to receive support under the mechanism, host Member States shall provide the following information:
(a)
maximum capacity on the host Member States’ territory available to projects supported by the mechanism, including per technology and year, where applicable);
(b)
maximum renewable energy generated by the projects and site restrictions, where applicable;
(c)
the national regime applicable to project promoters with respect to supported grid costs;
(d)
other relevant elements.
3. The Commission shall take into account the information received pursuant to paragraph 2 of this Article when designing the grant award procedure.
4. The host Member State confirming its commitment shall provide the Commission with the necessary administrative assistance for the implementation of the mechanism, in particular for the purposes of reporting the quantity of energy from renewable sources produced by projects receiving non-repayable support from the mechanism, located in the host Member State.
5. The provisions of this Article apply to third countries participating in the mechanism and hosting projects accordingly.
Communication of ceiling prices by the Commission
Based on the binding commitments of host Member States and using the approach referred to in Article 7(6), the Commission shall determine and communicate to participating Member States a ceiling price and maximum budget available in EUR for each call for proposal, as well as indication on the options for the Member State in case the result of the call for proposals is below the ceiling price.
Binding commitments by contributing Member States
Contributing Member States shall confirm to the Commission their irrevocable and unconditional commitment to provide payments to the mechanism in relation to one or several call or calls for proposals within three months from receiving the communication of the ceiling prices referred to in Article 9. The commitment by the contributing Member State shall be binding and shall, at least, cover the following elements in relation to the contributions made to the mechanism:
(a)
the volume of the financial contribution by the Member State (EUR) per grant award procedure, or the renewable energy generation that the Member State will support and benefit from in terms of statistical allocation, expressed in kW or kWh, according to the final ceiling price, combined with a maximum budget available in EUR;
(b)
the timing of the payments;
(c)
an indication whether the payment is made pursuant to paragraph (1) or (2) of Article 33 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1999;
(d)
the distribution of statistical benefits between contributing and host Member States.
Call for proposals
1. On the basis of the binding commitments by host Member States and, where relevant, third countries, and the binding commitments by contributing Member States, the Commission shall launch the call or calls for proposals in due time. The Commission may launch several calls at the same time, or conduct several grant award procedures under the same call. The Commission may also decide not to launch a call for proposals where the interest expressed by contributing Member States and/or host Member States results in volumes which are too low to successfully implement a call or where the related transaction costs would be excessive, which shall be assessed for each particular call for proposals.
2. The call for proposals shall be published after the payments by Member States are transferred to the Union budget.
Evaluation procedure
1. Following verification of the eligibility criteria, the Commission shall evaluate the submitted proposals in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 200 of Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046.
2. Awards are granted first to the application offering the lowest price and thereafter in the order of the lowest to the highest price, except where other award criteria are applied pursuant to Article 21.
Failure of the grant award procedure
Where, following payment by a contributing Member State into the mechanism, the award procedure is not concluded, among other things, as a result of no suitable applicants responding to the call for proposals, the Commission shall offer the contributing Member State the opportunity to either recover the amount it contributed or to keep the contribution in the mechanism to be used in a new call for proposals, for which the Member State will have to confirm its commitment pursuant to Article 10.
Failure by the project promoter to implement the project
1. Where the project promoter fails to deliver in accordance with the call for proposals and with the relevant grant agreement, the relevant provisions governing suspension, termination and reduction in Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 shall apply.
2. Where pursuant to paragraph 1, the project does not deliver the expected generation capacity or the volume of renewable energy generated, statistical benefits to Member States shall be attributed on the basis of the actual capacity provided or renewable energy generated. In that event, the participating Member States shall be deemed to have taken additional measures in accordance with Article 32(3) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 for an amount of energy calculated by the Commission on the basis of the expected generation capacity, the financial contribution paid by the Member State, and the ceiling prices applicable to the tender in which the Member State committed to participate, for the period during which the project would have given rise to statistical benefits as per the first sentence of Article 27(2).
SECTION II — Design of the grant award procedure
Principles of the grant award procedure
1. Grants shall be allocated by means of calls for proposals and a subsequent grant award procedure.
2. Where a Member State contributes to the mechanism by making a voluntary financial payment pursuant to Article 32(3) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1999, such contribution may only be allocated to projects selected in the context of an award procedure having lowest price as the sole award criterion.
3. Where a Member State contributes to the mechanism by making an additional payment in accordance with Article 33(2) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1999, such contribution may be allocated to joint projects, joint projects with third countries, joint support schemes, small-scale or innovative technology projects, projects in outermost regions and isolated or small islands, developing projects for integrating renewable sources into the energy system or other projects that contribute to the enabling framework pursuant to Article 3(5) of Directive (EU) 2018/2001.
4. The design of the award procedure shall comply with the following principles:
(a)
ensure a competitive process among grant applications to achieve cost-effective renewable energy deployment;
(b)
mitigate financial risk for applicants in the different grant award procedures;
(c)
limit transaction costs for applicants and the contributing Member States.
Scope of the grant award procedure
1. The allocation of support in the form of grants shall be carried out through grant award procedures which may be of different scope, in line with the criteria laid down in Article 4(5) of Directive (EU) 2018/2001, as follows:
(a)
assessing the feasibility of technology-neutral grant award procedures, in which all technologies pursuant to Directive (EU) 2018/2001 shall be eligible;
(b)
alternatively, consider the use of multi-technology grant award procedures, in which only specific technologies pursuant to Directive (EU) 2018/2001 shall be eligible to compete against each other;
(c)
technology-specific grant award procedures, in which one specific technology defined in Directive (EU) 2018/2001 shall be eligible;
(d)
project-specific grant award procedures, in which project developers compete to develop a pre-identified project, which may include restrictions to a specific technology and/or to a specific site pre-identified by the host Member State;
(e)
end-use specific grant award procedures, in which only projects aimed at a specific end-use, such as heating and cooling or transport, shall be eligible.
2. The Commission shall decide on the scope of the grant award procedure, taking into account the preferences expressed by the contributing and host Member States, the renewable energy market development in the Union and other relevant circumstances.
3. The grant award procedures referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article may be open to renewable energy projects across the electricity, heating and cooling and transport sectors in order to explore the cost-effective potential and to foster convergence and cooperation.
Form and allocation of grants
1. The mechanism shall allocate grants for:
(a)
investment support granted to increase the capacity for renewable energy production;
(b)
operating support granted to incentivise the operation of renewable energy installations by providing premiums in addition to market revenues, both fixed and floating.
2. The Commission shall decide on the form of support for the awarded projects, taking into account the preferences expressed by the contributing and host Member States, the renewable energy market development in the Union and other relevant circumstances.
Investment support
Where the mechanism provides investment support, the form of support, its disbursement and other specific rules will be set out in the relevant call or calls for proposals.
Operating support
Where the mechanism provides operational support, it may take the form of a fixed premium or a floating premium. Its disbursement and other specific rules will be set out in the relevant call or calls for proposals.
Eligibility and selection criteria
The eligibility criteria and selection criteria shall be established in the call for proposals with due regard to the objectives of the action and in accordance with Article 197 and 198 of Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046.
Award criteria
1. The award criteria for the proposals shall be established in the call for proposals and shall comply with Article 15(2) as regards the gap-filling function and with Article 3(5) of Directive (EU) 2018/2001 as regars the enabling function.
2. As regards the enabling function, the award criteria for the proposals shall to the extend possible reflect the expressed preferences by Member States, notably on environmental criteria.
3. For demonstration projects representing a significant innovation, the call for proposals may establish specific award criteria, in particular with respect to applications in a technology-specific award procedure or a project-specific award procedure.
Awarded good and volume
1. The good and volume that is awarded in the grant award procedure may be defined in terms of installed capacity, in kW or energy production, in kWh. Alternatively, the volume may be defined in terms of budget, in EUR, and production capacity or energy generated may be awarded until the budget is depleted.
2. Where the grant award procedure is defined in terms of capacity or renewable energy generated, it shall set out a target volume and the support shall be awarded to projects having the highest grade according to the relevant award criteria until the target volume is reached.
3. Where the grant award procedure is defined in terms of budget, it shall set out a maximum amount of budget which is awarded to projects having the highest grade according to the relevant award criteria until that budget is depleted.
4. The volumes of the competitive grant award procedure shall be defined in advance of the procedure and shall not be adapted during the implementation of the procedure.
Implementation periods
1. Implementation periods shall be technology-specific and shall reflect realistic project delivery periods for each technology, while at the same time aiming for a significant level of pre-development required from bidders.
2. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, in technology-neutral award procedures or multi-technology award procedures, implementation periods may be uniform across technologies in order to select projects and technologies with the lowest delivery times without discriminating certain technologies that require longer implementation periods.
3. Implementation periods shall be uniform across Member States, unless the Commission concludes, on the basis of justified exemptions such as to mitigate systematic disadvantages for projects located in a specific country, that country-specific implementation periods are appropriate.
Source: EUR-Lex (Publications Office of the EU), © European Union, reuse permitted under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
