The European Island Facility NESOI offers grants of up to € 60k per proposal as well as € 60K worth of Technical Assistance to help local island authorities in Europe reach their energy transition ambitions.
A key challenge for local authorities and legal private entities on islands is to transform their overall long-term ambitions into a credible set of plans and project outlines as many do not have the expertise to concretely launch investments, access finance and kick-start their projects. For this reason, the European Islands Facility NESOI aims to support successful energy transition projects on EU islands, mobilising more than €100m of investment and significantly reducing CO2 and GHG emissions through a hands-on approach allowing local authorities and legal private entities to get the necessary technical and financial capacity for the effective implementation of islands’ energy transition plans.
All kinds of sustainable energy transition-related projects are eligible for NESOI support, including but not limited to:
- Production of energy from renewable sources
- Energy efficiency interventions on public assets (buildings, public lighting systems, etc.)
- Realization/improvement of energy storage systems
- Improvement of the existing electricity grid
- Realization/improvement of District Heating and Cooling networks
- Energy-related waste and water management actions
- Implementation of sustainable mobility systems
- Improvement of energy monitoring and management at island level
- Energy auditing and analysis, energy planning at island level.
The total EU funding available for the call for proposal is 3,120,000€ with a maximum grant amount per proposal/beneficiary of 60,000 EUR. In addition to this, 60,000 EUR worth of Technical Assistance will be provided directly by the NESOI team of experts.
The first NESOI open call closes on 18 December 2020! For more information on how to apply visit the “Open Calls” section on the NESOI website!
Context of to the European Islands Facility NESOI
As recognised in the 2017 “Political Declaration on Clean Energy For EU Islands“, islands and island regions face a particular set of energy challenges and opportunities due to their specific geographic and climatic conditions. The opportunities have the potential to make Europe’s island communities innovation leaders in the clean energy transition for Europe and beyond – a fact the European Commission explicitly recognised in its Communication on “Clean Energy for All Europeans“, highlighting its commitment to ensure that the energy concerns of island inhabitants are at the forefront of the energy transition and related policy developments.
The EU Island Facility NESOI (New Energy Solutions Optimised for Islands) is a four-year Horizon 2020 project funded under call topic LC-SC3-ES8-2019 (European Islands Facility –Unlock financing for energy transitions and supporting islands to develop investment concepts)1. It began on 1 October 2019 and will finish on 30 September 2023 and is made up of a multi-disciplinary consortium consisting of 10 partners from 9 EU member states. It has a total budget of €10 million of which approximately €3 million is dedicated to a cascade funding mechanism to provide direct financial support to EU Islands. Coupled to consortium capacity building activities, the facility aims to mobilise more than 100 M€ of investment in sustainable energy projects to an audience of 2.400 inhabited EU islands by 2023, giving the opportunity to test innovative energy technologies and approaches in a cost-competitive way and leading to an expected 440 GWh/year in energy savings.
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