London (Platts)--11Mar2011/638 am EST/1138 GMT

The EU has received proposals for over 150 carbon capture and storage and innovative renewable energy projects to be funded by its "NER-300" program, EU climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard said Friday.

The EU plans to fund at least eight CCS projects and at least 34 innovative renewables project from the fund which is to be financed by the sale of 300 million EU emissions allowances from the New Entrant Reserve.

The EC said it had now received information from 25 EU member countries showing that 22 CCS and 131 renewables project proposals were received by the February 9 deadline for the first call for proposals.

Of the CCS proposals, six are for pre-combustion CCS at power plants, while eight are for post-combustion and four are for oxyfuel combustion in power plants. Another four are for CCS outside the power sector: in refineries, cement kilns, in iron and steel or aluminum production Of the renewables proposals, 46 involve bioenergy, 22 concentrated solar power, 22 wind, 14 solar photovoltaic, 10 marine energy, nine distributed renewable energy management and eight geothermal.

"The number of projects submitted for funding is very encouraging. It shows strong interest among European businesses for investing in low-carbon technologies...It also highlights the role that emissions trading and public sector financing at EU level can play in kick-starting the low-carbon transition, a helpful reminder as we prepare the EU's future budget framework up to 2020," Hedegaard said.

The current carbon price for EUAs for December 2012 delivery, as assessed by Platts Emissions Daily Thursday, was Eur16.39, which would value the funding available at Eur4.9 billion, but the EU said project sponsors would also be expected to contribute around the same amount from private and other sources.

National governments have until May 9 to check the validity of project proposals and then submit those projects they wish to support to the European Investment Bank, which is to sell the NER-300 allowances to raise finance.

Plans to auction allowances depend on the start up of an EU central registry, not expected until late 2011 at the earliest.

At least one project, and a maximum of three will be funded in each EU country.

--Paul Whitehead, paul_whitehead@platts.com

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