The European Commission has published a report entitled ‘Scaling up innovative technologies for climate neutrality’.
The report analyses 184 projects focused on climate neutrality in energy-intensive industries. The projects include innovative clean technology areas such as electrification, the integration of hydrogen, carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS), circularity and energy efficiency.
Key findings include:
- The clear role for each of the EU financial instruments as they support technologies at different maturity levels.
- Public spending can leverage relatively high private investments especially with mature technologies.
- Energy efficiency and CCUS technologies have a great potential in all sectors and that more investment into electrification is also needed.
- Circular technologies are significant in the chemicals industry, while the cement industry focuses on CCUS and energy efficiency.
- Not all EU countries have such demonstration projects supported by an EU programme, despite the role of energy-intensive industries in their economies.
The report points to the need for follow-up investments for these clean technologies to enter the market by 2030 and to significantly contribute to the EU climate goals of 2050.