InnoEnergy makes funding for innovation available year-round

By offering funding and connecting successful applicants with its network of industry experts, InnoEnergy, the Netherlands-based sustainable energy innovation engine, is shortening the commercialization journey for businesses with game-changing clean energy solutions. Last week, the company announced that it would extend its annual funding round throughout the year.

So far in 2017, InnoEnergy’s Investment Round has supported seven new projects in the fields of renewables, smart and efficient buildings and energy efficiency to the tune of €13.5 million.

“To create a sustainable energy future for Europe we need to propel proven innovations to market in a quicker timeframe.  Moving to an all-year model will empower innovators to access the Investment Round’s unique mix of technical and market expertise, financial support and commercializing partners when the time is right for their business,” said Diego Pavia, CEO of InnoEnergy, stressing that the future of clean energy relies on more flexible and adaptable funding.

“The projects InnoEnergy backs typically have an overall cost of €0.5 – €50 million and we look to fund 20 – 80% of the project (the average is 61 %),” a company source told pv magazine, adding that the typical value InnoEnergy contributes to a project is €0.2 – €5 million.

When asked how much of this funding will be directed to solar and storage projects, the source said that the company does not favor any one of its business lines over the other, and does not have a set amount dedicated to solar and storage.

So far, some of the notable solar projects that have received Innoenergy’s financial support are: BIVP-insight, an integrated software tool for performance prediction of building-adapted PV products; BIMsolar, an integrated software platform that provides easy visualization of BIPV benefits at a building level, including return on investment, and EFFIC, an advanced back-end interconnection system for CIGS solar modules.

Since its launch in 2011, InnoEnergy’s Investment Round has supported more than 90 projects with €170.5 million, resulting in €3 billion of forecasted sales. This has led to 77 patents and 323 project partners working on projects across Europe spanning over eight technology areas, including energy efficiency, energy from chemical fuels, smart electric grid, nuclear instrumentation, clean coal and gas technologies, energy storage, smart and efficient buildings and cities and renewable energies.

Applicants that wish to receive funding in 2017 should apply before October 23. All applications that arrive after this date will be considered for the 2018 funding.