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European City Facility

The EUCF Fund is a 60,000 EUR lump sum for Local Authorities to fund their investment concepts for sustainable energy projects. The European City Facility is currently in its Fourth Call having already supported 167 beneficiaries across three calls (third call beneficiaries not yet announced).

The First Call saw 257 applications from across Europe with 30 municipalities receiving the lump sum. The second call had 221 applications and a further 69 projects being selected as EUCF beneficiaries. The Third call had 166 applications with 69 investment projects set to be supported.

The 4th call will support the development of 48 investment concepts, with a total budget of 2,88 M EUR allocated to the three regions.

Project Summary

EUCF is a project designed by cities for cities

Municipalities, local authorities and local public entities are the driver of the European sustainable energy transition. With tremendous potential to build comprehensive sustainable energy investment programmes, they also play a key role in pooling smaller projects into larger investment portfolios and in mobilising significant financial resources required for the energy transition.

Set up under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation of the European Union, the EUCF will unlock this local potential and support municipalities, local authorities, their groupings and local public entities aggregating municipalities/local authorities in Europe with tailor-made, fast and simplified financial support (in the form of EUR 60,000 lump sums) and related services to enable them to develop relevant investment concepts related to the implementation of actions identified in their climate and energy action plans.

Successful applicants to the European City Fund will use the lump sum to develop their investment concepts, which represents an initial step towards a fully-fledged business and financial plan. The ultimate objective is to build a substantial pipeline of sustainable energy investment projects across local authorities and local public entities in Europe.

About The Fund

  • Institutional arrangements for regional prosumers
  • lacking renewable infrastructure
  • regional supply-demand chains
  • coping with limited grid capacity and intermittent RE supply
  • balancing regional supply and demand profiles

To sustain and widely spread the results RegEnergy partners will present best-practice and showcases to cooperating regions and will actively help them to develop appropriate RE demand-supply partnerships in their region.

Key Information

 

Partners
About the Fund
  • 60,000 EUR
  • Can only be used to ‘develop your investment concept’
Applications
  • There will be four calls, we are currently in the Fourth Call
  • The Fourth Call ends September 30th.
  • Although Energy Agencies and other supporting bodies may be involved in applications, it must be made by a Local Authority
  • The EUCF application process consists of 2 steps: The eligibility check and the full application.
  • Further information on the Application Process is available here
  • You can also download the pdf for the Guidelines for Applicants below
Download the Guidelines for Applicants

EUCF Fourth Call

  • Call Opened June 9th and will Close September 30th
  • The Fourth Call will support the development of 48 investment concepts, with a total budget of 2,88M EUR allocated to the three regions.
  • Ireland is considered in the Nordic countries & Western European Region of the Programme.
  • Applications are evaluated based on 5 evaluation criteria:
    1. Investment size;
    2. Energy savings;
    3. Governance structure;
    4. Stakeholder engagement;
    5. Alignment with EUCF objectives
  • There are some changes to the EUCF Application for this fourth call. You can see these and download the Call Document on the EUCF site.
  • Please note the EUCF Fourth Call Webinar that was to be hosted on June 29th has been postponed.
Register for Our EUCF Fourth Call Webinar

Previous Calls

Details of the First Call

The 1st call for applications closed on 2nd October 2020.

Out of more than 250 applications the following beneficiaries have been selected.

Details of the Second Call

The 2nd call for applications was open from 29th March – 31st May (2021).

Out of the 221 applications, 69 projects were selected as EUCF beneficiary.

Read the EUCF First Call Summary Report
Download
Read The EUCF Second Call Summary Report
Download

Details of the Third Call

The 3rd call for applications closed on 17 December 2021.

The EUCF Third Call received 166 applications the list of beneficiaries will be released as soon as all the agreements are signed.