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EUCF (European City Facility) Life

The EUCF Fund is a 60,000 EUR lump sum for Local Authorities to fund their investment concepts for sustainable energy projects. The first four calls of the European City Facility supported 213 beneficiaries across three calls. These calls were funded under the Horizon 2020 framework Programme for Research and Innovation of the European Union. The EUCF now returns for two more calls (6th, and 7th) as part of the LIFE programme from December 2022.

Successful applicants to the EUCF are using their 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.

The EUCF Life Sixth Call opened January 15th 2024 until March 15th 2024 and is now closed.

We recently hosted two Sixth Call related webinars:

  1. Information on the EUCF January 22nd, 2024. Watch here.
  2. Detailed look at the Application Process, February 29th, 2024. Watch here.
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Watch the 6th Call Launch Webinar

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, and being co-funded as part of the LIFE programme from December 2022, 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

 

What can be financed

The EUCF finances activities, such as (technical) feasibility studies, market analyses, stakeholder analyses, legal, economic and financial analyses, risk analyses, etc., that are required to develop the investment concept. These activities can be delivered by in-house staff or subcontracted external experts.

The grant cannot directly finance the actual investments, but it covers costs to mobilise resources and access services to develop an investment concept.

Applications are evaluated based on 4 evaluation criteria:

  1. Ambition of the proposed investment concept
  2. Governance structure for the development of the investment concept
  3. Stakeholders engagement strategy
  4. Coherence and plausibility

Please find the full details of the evaluation process in the Guidelines for applicants.

Partners

About the Fund

  • 60,000 EUR
  • Can only be used to ‘develop your investment concept’

Applications

  • There will be three more calls (seven total), we are currently in the Sixth Call
  • The Sixth Call ends March 15th, 2024 at 4pm
  • 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 Sixth Call – Now Closed

Play Video

Watch the EUCF Sixth Call Webinar

Play Video

Watch the EUCF Sixth Call Application Process Webinar

The EUCF  Sixth Call was open from January 15th until March 15th, 2024 and is now closed.

  1. To prepare Irish Local Authorities, we hosted webinar on November 7th, 2023 to help authorities prepare their applications early, and featured guest Bable Smart Cities who are experts on EUCF and other EU project applications. Watch here.
  2. Sixth Call Launch Webinar on January 22nd, 2024. Watch here.
  3. A detailed look at the application process, February 29th, 2024 is also available to watch here.These webinars give Authorities an overview of
  • what can be funded by EUCF,
  • what makes a good EUCF application,

You can sign up for EUCF Call Alerts below to ensure you’re notified about information for the next and future calls.

Sign Up for EUCF Call Alerts
Eucf Fifth Call Promo

Previous Calls

Details of the First Call

The 1st call for applications was open from 25th May – 2nd October 2020

Out of the 257 applications 30 beneficiaries were selected to receive their lump sum from the 1,8M euro budget.

Read the EUCF First Call Summary Report
Download

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 to receive their lump sum from the 4,14M euro budget.

Read The EUCF Second Call Summary Report
Download

Details of the Third Call

The 3rd call for applications was open from the 15th October – 17th December 2021.

Out of the 166 applications, 67 beneficiaries were selected to receive their lump sum from the 4,14M euro budget. A list of beneficiaries can be seen below or on this news post.

This call included success from two Irish Applications, Donegal County Council and South Dublin.

Eucf Third Call Beneficiaries
Read the EUCF Third Call Summary Report
Download

Details of the Fourth Call

The 4th call for applications was open from 9th June – 30th September 2022.

Out of the 129 applications, 48 beneficiaries were selected to receive their lump sum from the 2,88M euro budget.

Read The EUCF Fourth Call Summary Report
Download

Details of the Fifth Call

The 5th call for applications was open from the 28th April 28th –  30th June 2023.

The 5th Call supported the development of 70 investment concepts, with a total budget of 4.2M EUR allocated to the three regions.

Successful projects will be announced once all the municipalities have signed on.