Poland’s National Centre for Research and Development has been successfully announcing and leading initiatives supporting the European Green Deal in order to drive Poland towards climate neutrality. The new strategic programme aims to implement solutions that ensure country’s energy security and to maintain the competitiveness of the Polish economy. The initiative’s objective is to contribute towards increasing the share of renewables in the mix from 20% to 50% compared to 2020.
The programme’s budget has been set at EUR 83 million and three thematic areas have been indicated.
The first topic concerns "solar energy", where financing will be available to projects related to the innovative use of photovoltaic cells and devices in agriculture, construction and transport.
The second thematic area concerns "energy use of waste and heat from process gases". Within this area, the NCBR will be able to finance projects solving the issues of processing and use of combustible solid waste, waste heat as well as mobile heat storage facilities.
The third thematic area concerns the "energy use of geothermal heat (geothermics)". In this regard, the Centre’s objective is to finance solutions for innovative geothermal systems producing heat and electricity, the use of energy and geothermal waters in agriculture and the exploration of highly mineralized geothermal waters.
The projects will be implemented in three phases and they will compete with each other. In the first phase, scheduled for 9 months, a technical and economic feasibility study should be prepared of the proposed plan within the maximum budget of EUR 21.000. The second phase is expected to result in achieving at least TRL 6 (Technology Readiness Level) within 2 years and the funding could be up to EUR 3.25 million. In the final third phase, lasting maximum of 3 years with a budget of maximum EUR 16.9 million, the developed solution should reach at least TRL 8. Contractors will be required to implement the project's results within three years of the completion of its third phase.
It is worth mentioning that apart from this programme, the NCBR conducts other activities for the energy transformation of the Polish economy. They are carried out in the pre-commercial procurement formula awarded by the European Commission in the first edition of the EUIPA competition.
The call for proposals for the "New Energy Technologies" programme is set to start on 1 April and will remain open until 30 June 2022.
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