New projects set to accelerate EU low-carbon market

Five new Climate-KIC projects have been green-lighted via the Climate Market Accelerator (CMA) programme.

Each of these projects is designed to help unlock demand for new climate innovations in Europe and builds on a breadth of activity already underway in Climate-KIC.

In response to a recent call for proposals, a total of 14 project ideas were submitted from across the EU. The pilots addressed a broad range of climate-related challenges and presented innovative mechanisms for feeding the resulting market intelligence back into existing Climate-KIC activity.

“Since the beginning of the CMA programme, we have already funded over €1.1 million of innovation activity,” said Malte Schneider, Chair of the CMA Programme Board and director of Climate-KIC’s centre in Berlin, Germany.

“The increase in application numbers for funding this year shows the expanding interest in climate innovation across the EU and the growing awareness that demand-led innovation is key to accelerating the EU low-carbon market,” said Schneider.

The addition of the five new projects brings the total number of running CMA initiatives to 12. Together, the CMA project portfolio covers a diverse range of technologies across wide thematic and geographical areas.

Overview of the winning project proposals

The following five projects were awarded funding by the Board of the Climate Market Accelerator:

Polish Demand-Side Office Network (PODEM-ON)

By utilising an innovative market-led and demand-side competition, supported by some of the largest Polish property owners, investors and occupiers, PODEM-ON will encourage EU innovators to come up with solutions to improve energy and carbon efficiency across property portfolios.

Lead partner: Knight Frank LLP
Contact: Etienne Cadestin

Forest for Green Growth (F2G2)

By implementing a multi-sectoral network of buyers of bio-based based products, F2G2 will enable the identification of the most pressing needs for forest-based products and contribute to unlocking maximum demand for local wood-based composite materials and green chemicals.

Lead partner: Climate-KIC (France)
Contact: Victor Gancel

Unlock market demand for micro energy production in water utilities

This project will support Danish water utility companies seeking to identify technologies in order to meet their ambitions to reduce GHG emissions. Activity will focus on establishing a network of buyers to uncover the market potential for technologies that recover energy from water flows.

The resulting market insights will be fed into the wider Climate-KIC community.

Lead partner: COWI A/S
Contact: Anne Mette Benzon

Improve climate performance of clusters of SMEs

Responding to the critical needs of the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, this project will capitalise on the opportunity presented by a recent earthquake by boosting climate-conscious renovation and refurbishment.

By supporting local SMEs know-how on renovation issues and requirements, the project will stimulate the supply of climate innovations and facilitate the recovery of competitiveness within the region, ultimately leading to wider investment and employment.

Lead partner: Aster
Contact: Teresa Bagnoli

Energy Efficiency Innovation Pipeline

Building on an already-existing collaboration among Hungarian SMEs, the project will collect industrial energy saving data, experiences and best energy efficiency practices of successful companies, transforming them into transferable knowledge and key market insights.

The diffusion of this information in the SME network will result in an increased adoption rate for important climate innovations.

Lead partner: NEGOS Plc
Contact: Szilvia Zsargó