Expression of interest by Member States
Article 7
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.