District heating and cooling: Enabling modernisation and fuel switch through support for investment plans and skills development

Overview

Objectives

This call aims to decrease EU dependence on fossil fuel imports through the modernisation of district heating systems. Two scopes of activities are covered: Scope A covers technical support for the development of investment plans for this modernization and Scope B targets skills development of professionals, operators and public authorities. In particular, Scope B aims to increase the capacity of professionals along the district heating and cooling value chain to support the modernization of district heating systems and decrease dependence on fossil fuels.

Activities/actions supported

One of the activities under Scope B of this call should cover the development, testing and validation phase of new and/or upgrade and replication of existing training schemes, including on-site training and mentoring schemes. Activities should build on previous projects and programmes, be based on concrete successful examples, be tailored to local contexts, enable peer-to-peer learning, and where appropriate, be carried out through the use of existing software and tools.

Anticipated outcomes

Proposals should show how they plan to build the capacity of professionals or civil servants to develop modern district heating and/or colling systems.

Institution providing the funding

European Commission

Size of funding

EUR 1.500.000

Conditions

Overview of eligibility criteria

To be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must be legal entities (public or private bodies) established in one of the eligible countries (i.e.: EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)); non-EU countries (listed EEA countries and countries associated to the LIFE Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature (list of participating countries)).

Overview of award criteria

The award criteria are the following:

• Relevance (0-20 points)
• Impact (0-20 points; weighted at 1.5)
• Quality (0-20 points)
• Resources (0-20 points)

Maximum points: 90 points. Overall threshold: 55 points.

Procedures

Application procedures

All proposals must be submitted directly online via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System.

Proposals must be submited in 4 parts, as follows:

• Part A includes administrative information about the applicant organisations (future coordinator, beneficiaries, affiliated entities and associated partners) and the summarised budget for the proposal. Fill it in directly online.
• Part B (description of the action) covers the technical content of the proposal.
• Download the mandatory word template from the Submission System, fill it in and upload it as a PDF file.
• Part C containing additional project data. To be filled in directly online.
• Annexes (see section 5). Upload them as PDF file (single or multiple depending on the slots). Excel upload is sometimes possible, depending on the file type.

Application support available

As far as possible, please try to find the answers you need yourself, in this and the other documentation (we have limited resources for handling direct enquiries):

• Online Manual
• Portal FAQ (for general questions).
• FAQs on the Topic page
• LIFE Info Days

Please also consult the Topic page regularly, since we will use it to publish call updates. (For invitations, we will contact you directly in case of a call update).

Only in case you did not find an answer in the above links, you may contact:

• for individual questions on the Portal Submission System: IT Helpdesk
• for non-IT related questions: CINEA-LIFE-CET@ec.europa.eu.

Useful links

Link to funding opportunity

Link to the programme for more info