Good morning everyone and welcome to our third and final webinar of this year's series. We have a webinar called Kickstarting your EU IF application and it's the last series hosted by the EU and the Danish Energy Agency implemented by us at Implement Consulting Group. My name is Marian and I will be your host today. I have with me four very great colleagues and subject matter experts. Firstly with me we have Frederik who has done a lot of work on the greenhouse gas emissions avoidance. He's done many projects helping a lot of applicants calculate their GHG emissions avoidance and many who have been also very successful. We have Goldberg who has expertise within financial modeling and she's worked on the financial maturity as well as the cost efficiency topics over the past couple of calls. Then we have Valentin who has multiple years of experience in strategy and project development especially on very large renewable energy projects. And finally we have Sarah who is an expert in everything to do with public funding. She has extensive experience helping companies go from various different sizes of companies to apply for public funding and successfully launch some of their very innovative technologies. We have a very wonderful and knowledgeable group of speakers today so I'm very excited to share some of the key insights as well as their experience through this webinar. To ensure that this session runs smoothly we have some engagement guidelines. So first of all we encourage you to participate actively through questions and polls. There will be polls throughout the webinar so we highly encourage you to be proactive in engaging with us today. Secondly add questions continuously to the Q&A. Please note that the chat is not anonymous so if you want to ask questions anonymously please use the Q&A. Please use the Q&A tool that you see on the platform. And finally stay focused and relate to your project but we will not be taking any project specific questions so feel free to apply some of the learnings from the webinar onto your project directly but keep the specific project questions for the one-on-one sessions that you will have with Zinea January 9th on the info days. And for many of you that have joined this webinar previously you have seen this picture before. So we have we are already on that EU Innovation Fund journey up that mountain and let's use this last webinar to get you really up to speed with the fundamentals of the EU Innovation Fund. Let's revisit this timeline here. Today marks the final webinar of the Danish Energy Agency EU Innovation Masterclass. EU Innovation Fund Masterclass. We see that the call was published last week on December 3rd. There was a hydrogen auction info day last week. We are today here at the final EU Innovation Fund webinar. And then next week there will also be an info day call hosted by Zinea regarding the Innovation Fund as well as the battery call. So highly recommend to tune into that as well directly through the EU Innovation Fund. And finally there is a national info day. And finally there is a national info day happening on January 9th in Denmark. So for all of you Danish applicants who are interested in getting some one-on-one time and question and answers with Zinea they will be available in here in Denmark January 9th. So feel free to sign up directly through the link that is on the Energy Services website. And as a quick reminder, we do still have those service offerings offered by the Danish Energy Agency. The goal this year is to have more and better Danish proposals for the Innovation Fund and Klaus is the main national contact point where he is supporting all of you Danish applicants to get those proposals to a better and higher standard and submit more proposals through the Innovation Fund. As we talked about, the webinar series is one form of support. But we also offer validation assessments to assess the readiness as well as fit for the EU Innovation Fund. So if you feel that your project might be relevant for this year's fund, do reach out to Klaus to get that service offering. Great. So now let's head into today. The purpose of today is to first understand the Innovation Fund call for this year 2024, the structure as well as some of the key updates. Then we are also here to provide an understanding of each of the criteria and its requirements. And then finally share some of the insights and best practices to build a strong application. This is the agenda that we have today. So first of all, we will dive into the introduction to the IF24 call, where we'll go through some of the key updates, some of the structures as well as a general introduction. I'll take you through there. Then we move into the greenhouse gas emissions avoidance, and then to cost efficiency, where it's very much linked to that previous topic. We'll take a quick five minute break in between, then move into finding the sweet spot between innovation and maturity, then replicability, and then we'll wrap up for the rest of the day. Perfect. Without further ado, let's start off with the introduction to this year's call. Before we dive in, we have a poll for you all. And we'll the first question here is how significant are the changes in the new Innovation Fund call for proposals. The first answer is significant. It is a completely new document that we're working with. Number two is minor. There are some changes, but not super major. And then finally, there are no changes. It's exactly the same document as previously seen before. So please feel free to go directly into that poll and vote what you think is the correct answer. We'll wait a couple of seconds here to get your answers in. Yep, we're seeing some votes coming in. Many saying there are minor changes, some saying that there are significant changes. And hopefully you've had a chance also to take a look at the call for proposals already and skim through some of the elements there. All right. So I think at the moment we have a leading winner here, which is minor changes. So that is correct. In the perspective that we see it from previous call for proposals, the changes are minor. There are definitely differences in terms of the structure and the budget of the IF call. But in terms of the evaluation criteria, it remains quite similar to what we've seen before. So there are some changes, but nothing hugely different from before. Thank you so much for engaging with the poll. And now we'll dive right into the introduction to the Innovation Fund call 2024. Here are some numbers to get us started. 14%, 38%, and 2.4 billion. You might be already having a guess of what these numbers represent. So if you've tuned into some of our webinars in the past, you may recognize this 14%. number. It was the success rate on large scale projects last year in the IF 23 call. It is relatively a small number compared to some of the other windows. However, we've seen this number increasing and fluctuating over the last couple of years. So it'll be interesting to see how this number changes in this year's call. 38% is the number. 38% is the number in which on average projects fail on maturity. We've emphasized this before that maturity is a criterion in which a lot of projects struggle to get through the threshold as well as get a high score on. So there's also a big focus around how do we actually ensure that projects demonstrate maturity. So we'll dive into this in the next sections here with Valentin. And finally, 2.4 billion is the budget for this year's general decarbonization call. I think many of us here are looking into the general call. And so let's take a deep dive into what that budget actually entails. And what are the implications of that? So to get us started, the EU has set out this goal to be the first climate neutral continent in the world. It's a very ambitious goal. And underneath that the EU Green Deal is one of the key elements to help us get there. It comprises a package of policy initiatives setting the EU on that path to be climate neutral by 2050. One of the key levers in achieving this goal is public funding programs. And the EU Innovation Fund is one of the largest mechanisms to get us there. As you can see, within the EU Innovation Fund 2024, it's structured across 500 topics with a total budget of 2.5 billion euros with a 40% flexibility clause. There we go. So we see that this is the division of the windows that we see. We have 50% allocated to the large scale. So 1.2 billion euros there. And then we also have around a third dedicated to clean tech manufacturing. And then the other windows around pilot, small scale and medium scale remained largely the same. There are different requirements in terms of how big your project needs to be. So for example, on the large scale, you'll need to have a CapEx of at least 100 million euros. For the other windows, it is at least 2.5 million. And also for the medium, it's between 20 million and 100 million. So these specifications are directly in the call. So I highly recommend you see what window you your project would fit best in. If we see the budget evolvement over time. In this year's call there, we see that there is a dedicated window for EV battery call EV battery cell manufacturing. It comprises of 1 billion euros. And then the hydrogen auction is 1.2 billion euros. So these are separate calls outside of that general decarbonization window. This leaves us with an overall budget as I mentioned of 2.4 billion. And in comparison to previous years where the flexibility clause was 20%. This year we see a 40% flexibility clause. So still there is some wiggle room to be had after the proposals are submitted. If the EU thinks that there are projects that can provide a bit more grant to, they will decide on that after the call for proposals have reached the deadline. And as I mentioned, although the overall budget for the decarbonization. And as I mentioned, although the overall budget has for the decarbonization general window has decreased, we see that the total pool of funding available through the innovation fund has increased. So still there is a lot of opportunity for projects to get funding. So here we are at a point in time where you are here to decide to whether or not to engage with the call. We saw that the call was published last week. We are here today, December 12th with 134 days, 133 days left in the deadline for the call. And then we see that the 24th of April is the deadline. Then the award announcements will be happening in Q4 2025. That's around September, October, according to the call document. And then the grant agreement signature and project development assistance will happen around quarter one of 2026. So this is the general timeline that you see. And if you decide to engage with the fund, and this is the pathway in which you will be following. So let's revisit the evaluation criteria. As I mentioned, we don't see a huge difference, especially in the general decarbonization call. And we went through a lot of these criteria on in the previous webinars, the five criteria still remain the same. And there are minor tweaks within each sub criteria, but the overall categories remain the same as before. This is an overview of the key deliverables across all of the criteria. We see that part B from 80 pages, it has jumped down to 70 pages. Some of the questions were removed, condensed. So there's a little less wiggle room in terms of writing space there. However, we see that everything else remains relatively the same. And business plan and feasibility studies. These are new templates that the EU has provided previously, you just submitted whatever document you wanted. But there is a recommended template, it's not mandatory, you can deviate from it. However, they do have a recommended template. Let's dive into the scoring. So from previous years, as I mentioned, the overall weighting also remains the same. And if we see all of the sub criteria, the thresholds are as as the same, you still need to score a minimum threshold on some of the criteria in order to get assessed for the next one. And especially for replicability, there were five sub criteria, but this year, it's been condensed down to three, with a big focus on how your project contributes to the European industrial leadership and competitiveness. So there's definitely a big focus around how to demonstrate that in your project. In terms of each criterion, I'll let the other speakers take you through a deep dive. So we will keep the overview at this level. Perfect. If we revisit how your project will be evaluated, it is using a cascading approach. So here, if we have a little funnel, the first step, step zero, is to check the eligibility and admissibility. So evaluators will check whether or not the legal entity is eligible, and the activities are in scope and the admissibility, meaning is the information complete and is it the correct documents. Once a project passes that through, then it goes through assessing the degree of innovation. As I mentioned, there is a threshold here. So you need to be able to score at least nine out of 15 points. Otherwise, the evaluation is stopped. Once you are able to pass it either at a nine or anything above, then we'll go down into assessing the greenhouse gas emissions avoidance. As I mentioned, project maturity is one of the hardest points to achieve or thresholds to meet. A lot of the projects in the past have failed on this. So this we see as one of the steps that are a big hurdle for many projects. If your project is successful on the project maturity, then it goes down into cost efficiency and then finally around replicability and the bonus. points. And that is a lot of information. And with the EU innovation fund, it does seem like a massive package of documents that you need to submit. But there is also a lot of key documents and help along the way. And in addition to the webinars that we are hosting to provide a lot of these information directly from the EU. There is the call for proposals as well as some documents for the relevant cost methodology and the greenhouse gas methodology. These are like your Bibles for the innovation fund application where it really outlines all of the guides that you need in order to have a successful understanding of the innovation fund. Secondly, there is also a toolbox to help with the application. As I mentioned, there are a number of different templates. Part B, the relevant cost calculator, the financial information file, and participant information file, etc. Please note that you can't deviate from some of these key documents such as Part B, the financial information file, etc. However, in the feasibility study and the business plan are new documents and the EU has set templates for. And it is only a recommended format. Thirdly, there is the model grant agreement that helps to understand the contractual conditions linked to the grant. And then finally, there is the model grant agreement that is related to the contractual conditions linked to the grant. And then finally we have the example of the contractual conditions for there is also additional support from the EU. As I mentioned, there's the Info Days, that's happening next week on the Innovation Fund and the Battery Call, and also the Help Desk, where you can contact them via email, and they're quite responsive to answer any clarification questions you might have specific to your project. This is just an overview of what each of the templates look like, but do note that these are only a select few deliverables, and there are further more documents that need to be submitted in addition to this package. That wraps up the General Innovation Fund Call, and this year we see that there is a new battery call in which there is 1 billion euros attached to for the funding. Basically, the objective of this is to support projects in the electrical vehicle battery cell manufacturing, first to enhance Europe's capacity and leadership, and then to ensure that Europe is ready to respond to the demand and production in line with the emissions performance standards regarding CO2 emissions performance. So this is the overall objective of this fund, the 1 billion euros heading towards battery cell manufacturers. The key activities that are in scope can be divided into two different buckets. So firstly, manufacturing of cells that can be used in electrical vehicle batteries. The definition in which covers this activity are as follows. It is a battery that is specifically defined to provide electrical power for traction in hybrid or electrical vehicles in a specific category L and part of the regulation, and then a battery that weighs more than 25 kilos, or batteries that are specifically outlined in that regulation. So to fit and check the eligibility, I highly recommend you go to that direct regulation to check what category your battery has in. So what category your battery cell would qualify for and what category your battery cell would qualify for and whether that activity will be in scope. The second is option for horizontally integrated projects. So this includes different cathode material, anode material, electrolyte and separator, as well as battery and battery material recycling. So it's interesting not only to see that there is the cell itself, but also the horizontal integration of the different materials that go into manufacturing the battery. When we look at the battery. When we look at the key requirements, number one is that the key output of upstream components in the production steps. So if you are collaborating with an upstream supplier who has recycling material to be able to use in your battery, please note that this can't exceed 100%. So only the amount that is used for the purpose of this project in scope for the innovation fund will be eligible for that funding. So anything above that production level will be outside of the scope. Secondly, any new patents originating from the project during the project duration must be registered in the EU member state or an EEA country. So any kind of new intellectual property and the EU wants to make sure that it's kept within the continent. And finally, the project key requirements are quite similar from what we've seen before, a capex of minimum 2.5 million euros, a financial close within a financial close within a maximum 4 years, and then operational for at least 3 years, which is the minimum GHG monitoring period. If we look into the scoring, it is slightly different than what we're used to. Namely, it emphasizes maturity, sustainability, and replicability. We see that the maturity criteria takes up 28% of the evaluation criteria. As well, we see two different criteria. So the manufacturing carbon footprint reduction and security and countering dependency. So let's take a quick look at what those actually entail. So the first one, degree of innovation, it is lower in terms of points. It's only 10 points rather than the 15. And there's a threshold of six points. Innovation can come in the form of final product performance. So for example, energy density, storage performance, or circularity. And then secondly, manufacturing process. So how if the process is a bit more efficient in terms of technology, if there are applications of innovative digital technology or integration of recycled materials in that manufacturing process. Then we see the greenhouse gas emissions avoidance. This is relatively the same as what we've seen previously. Then we have manufacturing of carbon footprint. carbon footprint reduction. It's very much tied to the greenhouse gas emissions avoidance. But it's basically the difference between the expected GHG emissions of the project's manufacturing process and the GHG emissions of the reference scenario. We'll take a closer look into this during the next section where we cover the GHG criterion. Maturity is the same. However, there is a greater weighting there. It's a weighted multiplied by two. So it's out of 30 points. And the sub criteria and the sub criteria and technology, operational and financial remain the same with a threshold of three points. In terms of replicability, this is also the same three sub criteria. However, also a key focus on contribution to Europe's industrial leadership and competitiveness. So it's supporting European batteries, ecosystem suppliers, the machine machinery manufacturing equipment within the EU, and also creation of IP rights within Europe. So it's really to help demonstrate EU's leadership within this field. Security of supply and countering dependency is also a very new criterion we see from this specific battery call. It's basically the degree of diversification of supply of cathode active materials and anode active materials from China during the project's monitoring period. So in order to start look into the battery call to see if there's any very specific requirements that apply to your specific projects. And that wraps it up for the two calls, the general DCARB and the battery call. And if you are interested in the hydrogen auction, definitely do tune in for our dedicated session here today at one o'clock. So for today's webinar here, and now we'll move on to the greenhouse gas emissions criterion, which is built in the greenhouse gas emissions and the energy of the new carbon emissions and the energy of the new carbon emissions. And so we'll be able to see if we're building a pathway to climate neutrality. And for that, I'll invite my colleague Frederick to come up with me. Welcome back, everyone. And thank you for being here, Frederick. It's great to see you. Thank you. And before we dive into our GHG emissions avoidance criteria, we have prepared a poll for you. So the question is what is considered more important to maximize competitiveness on the GHG emissions avoidance? First is absolute GHG emissions avoidance. Second is a relative GHG emissions avoidance and see bonus points. And while you go directly into the poll to answer that question, I have a question for you, Frederick. So for you, what do you think is the most important capability to have and build within your team to succeed on this GHG emissions avoidance criteria? Very, very good question. I think I could mention the mention many capabilities that would be super nice to build in a team. But the most important one might be like, the ability to create structure and transparency. I think working with this criteria, you will build a lot of models with a lot of dependencies. So really be firm on structure and transparency and documentation, etc. would be valuable. Yeah, I think documentation definitely is one of the things that matter not only in the GHG emissions avoidance criteria, but across many other criteria as well. So that's definitely a very good answer. Thank you. And thank you. I see in the poll that we've seen people voting in. And it seems like there is the most waiting for relative GHG emissions avoidance. And then some say a absolute, and we don't see anything for bonus. So do you mind taking us through the right answer for this? Yeah, I think the crowd is on to it. They got it. I mean, it's of course project dependent. But what the commission does mechanically with the scoring is basically to reward projects, not just for being big projects with a lot of absolute emission avoidance, but also being relatively good at abating all the emissions in the reference scenario. So basically the efficiency of the project. Yeah, perfect. With that said, I will pass it over to you. So I will pass it over to you to take the crowd all through the GHG emissions voidance criteria. Thank you very much. Good. Just to start off, I want to say a few words on what is sort of the founding thought of looking into these GHG emissions. And that is basically to get back to this investor point of view. So basically the commission is asking for the fund that we're going to be asking for the grand amount that each project requests, what do we then get out of it? So what is the impact? And this is what we're going to focus on today. So it's basically just understanding what do we pay per ton of CO2 and getting to this avoidance potential is not a novel exercise. So from Zinear's point of view, this is super much about creating a leveled playing field, a transport field where each project becomes comparable, a local level of a project. So creating this level playing field where projects can be compared on super simple metrics. That is basically the reason why we're talking about GHG now and why the commission have outlined a super thorough and super detailed methodology. So that is basically the founding thought. Good. What we're going to cover now is three things. First, it's basically just a small recap and a bit more deep dive on how is the avoidance potential evaluated and scored and in what deliverables do you, with your project, demonstrate this potential. Then it is digging a bit deeper into how is the avoidance potential calculated? Because now we put up a lot of fancy terms and criteria to get scored on. But how do we actually get to those numbers? We'll spend a bit of time on that and some of the key metrics that we're going to get points for in the very end. Lastly, taking the helicopter a bit up and then looking a bit more at the GSG criteria from a strategic point of view, how do we optimize our project from a GSG point of view, how do we optimize the points that we are likely to get out of this. And then closing off with some of the best advices that we have for you and your work with the GSG criteria. Good. First of all, just to recap, you have seen this picture before. So I'm going to jump some of it and focus very much on where the criteria of GSG comes into play. First one, the GSG criteria in itself can give you and your project 12 points. That is a rather impactful criteria and that is broken down into three things. So the absolute GSG emissions, as I said before, basically how big is your project? What is the absolute reduction avoidance potential from a project scenario compared to a counterfactual reference scenario? Then second of all, the relative emissions, full five points can be achieved here. That is basically, as I said before, how efficient is our project to avoid all the emissions in a reference scenario? So basically, disregarding size, making all projects more comparable and then seeing to what degree, how many percentage of your reference emissions can be avoided with your project. Then in the very end of the GSG emissions avoidance criteria is the quality. And this is somewhat my pet peeve because this is where you and our work with the GSG criteria can really have a massive impact. Full five points can again be achieved and also a threshold of three points is put in. So basically, this is Sineia saying, really putting up a strong incentive for you to focus on fairness, transparency, compliance with the methodology, etc, etc. So really, really encouraging you to build a trustworthy, credible and transparent GSG model. We'll spend some more time on how exactly this is achieved, but super important criteria. Cost efficiency, basically, not fully impacted only by the GSG emission criteria, but the GSG emissions avoidance potential here goes in as the denominator in your cost efficiency. So in the very end, there will be an optimization exercise going on. So basically, from a strategic point of view, with the emissions that we know our project can avoid, then what do we ask for as a grant in the very end? Also with a lot of financial dependencies, but basically, this can be optimized for your project. In the very end, in the very end, in the very end, bonus points, four points can be achieved in total. Some of them, the two latter ones are more project and sector specific, so I'll spend a little less time on them, but want to focus a bit more on the two first ones. Net carbon removals, that is basically achieving to generate net carbon removals from project So this is specifically relevant for carbon capture and carbon utilization projects. Basically, creating biogenic removals and storing of biogenic CO2 captured. This will be calculated in the same way as your relative GSG emissions, and then be translated into a bonus point if you manage to basically avoid more than is in your reference scenario. Second of all, other GSG savings, that is basically the commission's way of incentivizing you to think beyond your project. From the outset, a lot of emissions are generally excluded from your project and your project scenario. So the commission says a lot of emissions related to, for example, construction, transport of fuels, retrieval of fuels, refining of fuels, we don't account for fuels, we don't account for that in this framework, in this project scenario. But there is, of course, something to get at. There is some impact to be harvested. So with this other GSG savings point, the commission is incentivizing you to be a bit creative and looking beyond your project scope specifically, and then see how can we create additional positive impact from a GSG point of view. So that is basically, that is a that is how one other additional point can be secured. We're gonna, we're gonna talk a bit more, more about it in the end. So we'll get back to that. As walk through with the Marion, the batteries methodology is slightly different. We'll come back to how exactly you establish your project scenario and your reference scenario in the battery call. So, so, so really, again, be mindful that, that for whatever project you have, whether it be batteries or the other, consult the methodology. This is where you will get all the answers to exactly how to set boundaries, define products, etc, etc. Good. So far, so good. So now we know the scoring, but how is this demonstrated? And that is basically, two, two, would also say three, three deliverables that, that is on the radar of the GSG track responsibles. First of all, is the GSG calculator. It is a pre-designed template by Cineia. So all the hard work of, of designing the entire model that is done, super easy, it's a, it's relatively plug and play. It's also defined space sector specific. So when you have defined what sector do I, what category and what sector do I apply for, you go in and find the relevant template. So, so great support has already been given to, to create this transparency and structure that, that we discussed in the beginning. What is though, super important here on the GSG calculator is to strictly follow this, this template and the, the methodology that, that follows. So everything you do should be completely in accordance with how it's set out. You need to ref, refer every time you have to refer to the you, you, you, you, you make any, any specific choices, refer to methodology. Every time you make any assumptions, refer to methodology and documented in your model. That way you will, you will allow for the evaluators to fully transparently understand your, your choices, your assumptions, and the way you model your project and the impact from it. Secondly, besides from, from the calculator, there are two chapters in one in part B and one in the feasibility study. And this is basically, in part B summarizing all the hard work going into, to developing the GSG calculator. What is your project boundaries? How do you establish a reference scenario? And all these summarizing exercises. So, so when the evaluators read the part B, the main part of the application, they can easily understand all the key considerations that you have made in terms of, in terms of, of, of, of, of, of your GSG impact. In the feasibility study. That is sort of the, the, the back end of, of, of the same equation. So all the technical assumptions. Going into your GSG calculator, input materials, plant operational data, whatever that might be, that is summarized in the feasibility study as well. So, so you got all again, creating this transparency, and creating these linkages and alignment with the different deliverables. That is, that is key. Lastly, and definitely not to be forgotten, is the annexes. This is your chance to, again, create credibility and create transparency. So make sure to upload every tiny piece of relevant documentation to support your assumptions and your boundaries set. That could be emission factor, EU, supported by EU ETS reports. It could be PPA, it could be PPA supporting your claimed use of additional electricity. It could be certificates to demonstrate the sustainability of the biomass input that you use. Etc. Etc. Refer, document, this creates a quality and it creates creatability, which is key. Good. Looking a bit into how this is calculated. So now we understand, where to demonstrate it, where to demonstrate it, we understand how it's evaluated. Now we look, we're going to look a bit at how do you then calculate it more specifically. And the commission outlines a relatively simple six step process. It's rather mechanical, we can discuss it in the end. But it's set up for you to basically front load a lot of the methodological considerations around your project. How do I, how do I understand my project? In these terms of the EU commission guidelines? What is my principal product? Following from that, based on what is my principal product? How do I classify it? What category do I apply for? What sector do I belong to? That is basically front loaded. So do these initial considerations from the outset so you get it right. Because as we stressed in the beginning, the methodology is specific for each of these sectors, even on a product level. So getting getting these right from the beginning will help you understand from the very outset, what is accounted for, what should be accounted for, and what is basically in the end the impact of my project. Then based on the identification of what methodology to use for your calculations, you identify the emissions covered and you set the system boundaries. So that's a super, super important aspect to get this right. Basically, where does my project start and where does it end and what does it not account for? Important considerations. From that, you identify your reference scenario. What is the counterfact to my project? What is it that my projects basically, what problem does it solve or what which emissions does it avoid? Then mechanically complete the GSG calculator. All the numbers, all the inputs, etc. etc. And this is now it's drawn as a nice linear process. It's a reiterative process, right? So when you go through this, you'll have to go back and revisit, okay, what was it exactly that I understood as my methodology and my boundary setting. And then I'll recalculate again and again and again. Lastly, when all the deliverables are completed, it is uploaded to the portal. You'll get there in April. So no need to talk about that now. What I'd basically like to do is just to deep dive on step two that you just saw. So illustrating the sort of issue tree logic that the commission is trying to have you work in. So basically, the first thing you do is identify your principle product. So basically, what does my project, what does your project, what is the main aim of it? What is the innovative element and what does it serve to replace? Based on that, you find in the methodology document your category. And within that, you identify, okay, so what sector do I apply for? That could be hydrogen, refineries, salmon and lime, if we're talking energy intensive industries, and so on and so forth. This is not even the exhaustive list. There are many more. And from there, you basically, from your sector, you identify what is my product. And this is again, the commission's attempt to make it comparable. So they get to put you into different buckets, into different categories, so they can define a methodology and make different projects with very unique value chains, unique setups, comparable in the very end. Again, another point of observation, manufacturing of batteries and other manufacturing of other components has its own rather separate type of methodology. So consult the methodology. So consult the methodology. Make sure that you get it right for your project. This will, in the very end, end up with a specific section in the methodology that is for you. So get familiar with this. It's going to be your best friend throughout your project and throughout your work with developing the GCG model, etc. Good. Now we understand a bit the process. We have talked about how do I identify the methodology for my project, for my product. Then the next step is basically based on the guidelines set out in the methodology specific for your project to identify the absolute GHG emissions. That was, if you recall, the criteria that gave two points at the end. So let's just walk through how this is calculated and understood by the commission. The absolute greenhouse gas emissions avoidance is basically the difference over a defined period of time. This is the 10 years from you start your operations and the first 10 years of operation between all the emissions that would occur in a reference scenario. I. I.e. in the case of the absence of your project. And then the emissions that is occurring in your project scenario. Important to understand here is that this might seem as novel concepts, reference scenario, project scenario, but the key is really defining some comparable scenarios. So really understanding what is it actually in the reference scenario. what what what am I what what what is my project replacing. So establishing a credible reference scenario. That's a that is key and take some methodological considerations. And then again for the for your project scenario understanding what is the boundaries of my project. What are the emissions and making sure that that everything that must be included here is included. And the reason for this is that the commissions also awards relative emission, relative emissions avoidance criteria. So whatever you do here in the absolute emissions avoidance will also impact the relative score. So you cannot just leave out parts and define this the scope of a project super narrow or super wide. And then then in this way impact the magnitude of your project. Be key, consult the methodology and make sure you you frame and set the boundaries of your project according to the methodology. Good. That was the first one. That was the first one. That was the one that gave two points and now to the one. That we identified in the very beginning as even more important. The relative emissions avoidance potential. And that is calculated. Yeah, very simply put. It's the relation between the absolute emissions avoidance potential of your project. So you can see here a lot of the absolute emission avoidance. of your project. So just as we discussed before, the difference between a counterfactual reference scenario and your project. And then the share of emissions avoided compared to the reference scenario. So basically understanding the efficiency of your project. This will end up with a score between zero and 100 percent. 100 percent also capturing the ones that actually generate net negative emissions. So the direct carbon capture projects or the BEX projects will generate more than 100 percent. And this one will be set as 100. So basically the five points is just distributed within that spectrum from zero to 100 percent. So understanding how efficient is your project to deal with all the emissions that we have included in a reference scenario. Good. Small caveat on the batteries as promised. What is done in addition for the battery call is basically to expand a bit the width of the value chain that is included here. So for a lot of the general call projects, there is a rather narrow cut on the value chain to basically define the system boundaries of the project. But for the batteries, for the reasons that Marian discussed in the beginning, this is defined rather wide. So you can really demonstrate throughout with your project how you create positive impacts throughout your entire value chain for a battery manufacturing project. The way it's calculated is somewhat following the same logic as the other methodologies. It is basically comparing the same logic as the other methodologies. So you can also comparing a reference scenario with a project scenario. In this case also for the manufacturing part. So you can demonstrate efficiency on the manufacturing side of your project. In this is included raw materials, components production and cell production. And this is rather generic terms. There is a lot of considerations below this to make on what is included as raw materials. As what do we include in our component production. All the precursors, all the precursors, everything. The methodology again guides you in these considerations. What should be included in scope and what can be excluded from scope. This is compared again to the reference case being conventional battery manufacturing. In addition to this, or in the same way as before, this is then again translated into an absolute and a relative GHG emissions avoidance potential. So basically here the manufacturing footprint reduction reduction reduction that we have just discussed. That we have just discussed is just a subset of the general project and reference scenario. So here again the project scenario is manufacturing carbon footprint reductions and then the reductions from an electrical vehicle use case as compared to a reference case scenario where it's a regular fuel, fossil fuel, internal combustion engine, internal combustion engine case for vehicles. So again comparing, understanding the absolute difference and then also the relative emissions avoidance potential. Good. The last couple of minutes here I'd like to spend on basically where to put with giving some guidelines on where to put your focus. As discussed, the absolute GHG emissions is somewhat fixed. I mean your project has its merits, it has its natural size. So trying to really impact the absolute GHG emissions is not easy. Similarly the cost efficiency, again there are some relevant costs, there are some absolute emissions. emissions avoidance potential and cost efficiency, again there are some relevant costs. So the cost efficiency is a rather mechanical function of those two. It can be optimized and it should be optimized in the end, but focusing a lot of your efforts in the GHG emission track should again be guided towards the remainder criteria where you can really make an impact. First of these being the relative one. So again making sure that your project addresses as many emissions from your reference scenario as possible. Can we, for example, can we ensure that some type of technology is scaled for the full operation so we're not leaving any potential for relative emissions avoidance out. For carbon capture for example, can we demonstrate, credibly demonstrate and address the emission losses or the emissions along the value chain? whether that be for transport, storage etc. In this way we can actually impact the relative emissions avoidance potential. Secondly, quality of calculations. I'll round off with a point on that in the end, but this is again where you can actually make a rather big difference by creating this credible and well-documented case for your model. Net carbon removals. Net carbon removals and other GHG points. We have discussed them. The net carbon removals is specific to carbon capture projects and the other GHG, this is where you should be created. This is where you should raise your head from going deep in the project and then looking beyond how can we create positive GHG impact beyond our project in the value chain, etc. Just to say these points are all rounded to the nearest half point for each sub criteria. So that is just on the mechanical side a point of observation for you to be aware of. Closing out with the three most important recommendations from our side here. First of all, transparency and documentation is just super essential. It is again the commission want to create comparability. For them to do that they would have you to create a transparent, structured, explicit scenario that is fully aligned with methodology. So this is really why they reward quality of the calculations as they do. Second of all, the GHG methodology is basically going to be your Bible. It is at first glance super heavy and super complex. complex, but it really does when you have identified the relevant sections for you provide some super strong guidance on choosing mission factors. What is the data hierarchy? Where should I consult to get inputs and make these decisions that you'll have to make along the way? And lastly, follow, focus on the low hanging fruits. Assess from the very beginning where can I impact my score and what criteria is sort of out of my hands and where shouldn't I put my limited resources and attention. That was it. I want to invite Marian back into the studio. Yeah, perfect. Thank you so much, Frederick. If you have any questions regarding the greenhouse gas emissions section, feel free to populate that in the questions role. We haven't seen any questions come in just yet, but feel free to use that if you have any questions. One question for you, Frederick, is you've worked with the greenhouse gas emissions criteria for many times before now. What do you feel is the most challenging part about it? And also maybe some practical advice for some applicants this year? I think it's a super good question. I think to me, the most challenging thing is the bridging exercise. You know your project and you have a fairly established understanding of your project and bridging that to fit and squeeze that into the commission's logic and methodology is not a novel exercise and requires some considerations. Yeah, definitely. And we don't see any questions popping in, but if you do have any ongoing, feel free to put that in and we'll catch it at another time. But we'll conclude the section here around the greenhouse gas emissions avoidance and we will move on to the next part of the agenda, which is around cost efficiency. All right. Welcome to the studio, Goldberg. Great to have you here. Great to have you here. Goldberg is our expert who will be talking about cost efficiency, which is basically the return on investment for the EU. To get us started, let's start off with a poll. So this question is, what do you think is the biggest grant awarded in EU IF history? A is 287 million euros. B is 356 million euros. And C 412 million euros. And a question for you, Goldberg, is is there a limit to how much projects can ask for in terms of a grant? Yes, definitely. So how much you can ask for is defined by your relevant cost base and your relevant cost will set kind of the boundary for how much you can ask for, which will then impact your cost efficiency calculation. But in terms of a cap, if it's a mega, mega project, is there a cap in which this huge project can ask for or is it all based on that relevant cost methodology? It's all based on that relevant cost methodology. So it really depends on how big your relevant cost base is. And that's going to be determined on the nature of your project from a cost side and a revenue side. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you so much for that. And looking at the poll, we see quite a mix. I think 50% of you say that it's 412 million euros and then 20% at A and 30% at B. So we'll close the poll for now. And what is the correct answer? The correct answer is B, 356 million euros. And that was for a CCS project. Was that in the recent year? That was in 2021. 2021. Okay. Yeah. That's a very big amount of grants, definitely. But yeah. Great. Thank you so much for participating in the poll. And I'll pass it over to you, Goldberg, to take us through cost efficiency. Thank you so much. Great. So we'll be talking about cost efficiency here on this criterion. There's no major changes. The score is scoring and requirements are the same. The scoring is actually a bit different for the EV battery call, but we'll look into that in a few slides. There's a new template for the business plan. And there are fewer questions in part B on the cost efficiency, but still it's as we've seen it before. So the cost efficiency will look at your requested grant amount relative to the avoided GHG emissions, which Frederick just talked about. So how much you ask for in the grant will determine how cost efficient your project is. As I mentioned with Marian, there is a cap on how much you can apply for in the EIF funding scheme. And it all depends on your relevant cost base. But before we get to that, we actually need to talk about your own financial model. So first you will need to create financial projections over the entire project lifetime. Next, you will need to use the EU methodology and the template known as the financial information file to calculate your relevant cost base. Then 60% of that relevant cost base will be the maximum amount that you can ask for in the EIF. So your financial projections and your financial model will create the basis for the relevant costs. I'll talk about the relevant cost in just a second, but just looking quickly into the key deliverables on the cost efficiency and the financial maturity. We have your own detailed financial model. Here we have an example on a balance sheet and a cash flow. And then we have the financial information file and kind of a snippet into a similar, similar snippet in as the model on the left. The fifth, the financial information file that has some automatic calculations, which are locked, which will calculate the relevant cost base, your cost efficiency, and it kind of gives you an overview of your project from the EIF methodology point of view. So these two files will need to work together. First of all, you will need to have a detailed financial model where you include all of your financial projections. We highly recommend that you justify every single assumption that you put into your financial model. So you need to be able to show proof of the assumptions that you have. This could be anything from a market study to science, supply or offtake agreements. The rule of thumb is that the stronger evidence you have, the better. But of course, this depends on the maturity of your project. Once you have established your own detailed financial model, you will need to create a strong linkage between that and the financial information file following the EIF methodology. Linking the two files will make it much easier for you to work with the relevant cost and with the cost efficiency. But it's also going to make it much easier for the evaluator to go through your model. Lastly, you should follow as closely as possible the methodology provided by the EIF. There are some assumptions which you are required to use based on where you are located, the industry you're working in and so on. You will need to follow that methodology even though it differs from your own internal company practice. So you have your own financial model that will set the basis for the relevant cost. Your relevant cost will then set the basis for the grant amount. Once you start populating your financial information file, you will see that you have two options on how you calculate your relevant cost base. You can choose between those two methodologies. There's the option A, the No Reference Plant. This is the default methodology and if you don't have any reason to deviate from that one you are required to use this. Then there's option B the reference plant. If you go for option B you will need to show that this is the right option for you. You will need to provide a lot of documentation on it and it's a bit more workload using the option B the reference plant. These two methodologies apply to all size of projects and for all topics so no matter what you're applying for you need to pick either option A or B. So let's look a bit closer into the no reference plant methodology. As I said this is the default and your relevant cost will be calculated as your CAPEX undiscounted plus the net present value of your operating expenses and any maintenance CAPEX that you have and subtract from that the net present value of any operational benefits and revenue that you have. For the operating expenses and maintenance CAPEX and the revenues this would be only for the the first 10 years of the project lifetime. The pros of using this methodology as is that it is the default option. There's no burden of proof for you to show that this is the right way to go for you and the workload on applying this methodology is much lighter than compared to the reference plant and we'll get to that one in just a second. The con of using this is that in some cases this might give you a lower relevant cost than the reference plant method. And that would result in you having a lower maximum grant that you can ask for. Now that we've defined the relevant cost formula we can see that the key drivers are your revenue and cost profile both in terms of amount and timing of your project. Your ramp up profile will play a role here. Your weighted average cost of capital of course, coal boundaries, inflation, contingencies, and then the financial items which you will need to exclude from the relevant cost of capital. the relevant cost calculation according to the EUIF methodology. You will get to that in just a second. But first let's look at the option B. The reference plant methodology. So what we do here is to calculate your relevant cost. You will apply the same methodology as just described in option A. So your CAPEX, your operating expenses, maintenance CAPEX, and your revenue and operational benefits. And then you will need to do that exact same calculation for a reference plant. So your reference plant will be a unit or a plant using conventional technology which has the same size and same output capacity as your project. So in a sense you're basically calculating two relevant costs. You're taking the difference and that will be your new relevant cost base. So in some cases this might result in a larger relevant cost base meaning that you can ask for a higher cost. So in a grant. But again, the burden of proof that the reference plant needs to meet the criteria is defined in the coal and it is quite high. The workload is heavier because as I just described, you will need to set up two financial models and you will need to be able to justify all the assumptions for your project, but also for the reference plant. A reference plant that is a plant or project which is using the conventional technology. There's no innovation involved. It needs to be able to use a reference plant. When you are deciding whether or not to use the reference plant methodology, I would encourage you to think of the risk and reward ratio. So yes, this might result in you having a larger relevant cost and being able to ask for a higher grant. But again, you will need to prove that the reference plant methodology is the right one for you. You need to show a financial model which needs to be publicly available on the reference plant and you need to be able to show that the planning the reference plant is something that you're doing as an alternative to your project. So there's a lot of extra stuff that you will need to do just to be able to use this methodology. So as I mentioned before, not everything is going to be included in your relevant cost calculation. Any public support which you have received, requested or you plan on requesting during the project lifetime will be excluded from the relevant cost calculation. So this is any other grants. These are contracts for difference. These are feed in tariffs. The terminal value of your asset will not go into the calculation of relevant cost. Neither will not. Neither will the right of replacement of any existing assets or technologies that you may have. Any costs that occur before the grant signature or the first day of the month succeeding the application submission that is not to be included in the relevant cost calculation. Financing related costs and taxes, royalties fees to shareholders, reorganization costs, training expenses. These are costs that don't go into your relevant cost. They will still be able to use the relevant cost. financial model because it still impacts your project from a financial point of view, but they do not go up to building your relevant cost basis. So we're almost at the cost efficiency, but just a few things we need to be aware of when we are looking into the financial projections and the calculation of the relevant costs. There are three points on the cost efficiency criteria which go into the quality of your calculations. As a minimum, you will need to get to get to the cost efficiency criteria. 1.5 points on this. So you really want to think about the credibility and the quality of the calculation of your relevant cost. Your application could potentially lose points or score below the minimum threshold of 1.5 points if your assumptions and your projections of the financial model are not justified or consistent across all your documentation. 2.5 points on this. If you deviate from the defined methodology in the EUF in the call, then you will lose points and it could potentially lead to failure. So this would be something like including items in the relevant cost calculations, which are not supposed to be there as I just defined. 3.5 points on this. Your grant might be decreased after the submission of the application if the evaluator identifies minor issues in the quality of the relevant cost calculation. 4.5 points on this. If during the preparation of the project, there are changes to your financials so that the relevant cost is impacted. 5.5 points on this. And if they find during the mandatory audit at entry into operations that your revenues or costs were misestimated, then they will potentially reduce your grant amount. Significant mistakes here could impact the quality of the relevant cost calculation and it could lead to your application being rejected. 6. So now we have defined the relevant cost and your maximum grant is going to be 60% of the relevant costs defined. So just a quick recap. You have your own financial model. Combine that with the relevant cost methodology as explained in the financial information file from the UIF. You get your relevant cost base. 60% of that will be the maximum grant amount that you can ask for. So that is your maximum. So that is your maximum. You do not need to apply for that maximum. So that's a choice you need to make on how much do we actually apply for and how will that impact our cost efficiency score. Here we have an example of a funding project for BEX from 2021. And we can see that the total project costs around 2,708 million euros. We have the CAPEX, 609 million euros, estimated revenue 456, but the EIF grant was only 180 million euros. So that's only about 40% of the relevant costs requested. So your cost efficiency will be defined on how much of a grant you ask for relative to your avoided GHG emissions. You will need to find kind of the sweet spot of asking for the right amount, which will help your project fly and maybe sacrificing some points on that cost efficiency. because it's about getting the funding that you need, but also getting a good cost efficiency score. So your requested grant amount will impact the project evaluation project mainly through two components of the awarding criteria. We have the financial maturity site, which my colleague Valentin will walk through later on. But on that site, these are P&L items such as the internal rate of return of your project and the net present value of your project. These indicators will be looked at as with the grant and without the grant. We'll look into the financing structure of the project and the cash flow profile and debt repayment schedule. But on the cost efficiency, your cost efficiency will be defined as the grant amount that you ask for, plus any other public support. You divide that by the absolute GHG emission avoidance, and then you have your cost efficiency. The scoring will be calculated as the cost efficiency ratio. The scoring will be calculated as the as described below, where you have 12 minus 12 times the cost efficiency ratio divided by 200. This changes a bit depending on the topic that you're applying for. So looking at the cost efficiency points for the pilots, your score will be 12, which is the available scores for the cost efficiency minus 12 times your cost efficiency ratio, as just described on the slide before, divided by 2000. For the pilots, if your cost efficiency, you will be disqualified and you're out. For the EV batteries, your score will be calculated as three minus three times your cost efficiency ratio divided by 200. For the EV batteries, the score for the cost efficiency is three points. So that's why it's scaled by three. For the EV batteries and any other topics except for the pilots, your output change, your cutoff will be 200. If you go to 200 T. R. So once your cost efficiency goes above 200 T per ton, you are out. For any other topics other than the EV batteries and the pilots, your score will be 12. That is the number of points available for the cost efficiency minus 12 times your cost efficiency ratio divided by 200. So looking into projects that we've seen in the past, we see that the general topics are the most cost efficient with the average cost efficiency ratio being around less than 50 euros of the ground per ton CO2 avoided. So we can see that on the higher graph with the highest cost efficiency being in the chemical sector and then just becoming lower and lower as we go out to the right. For the pilots and the small scale projects we can see that it's quite a bit higher but again the cutoff for the pilots is 2000 euros as opposed to the 200 euros. So looking into the scoring now the amount of cost efficiency points for the general pilot and clean tax is 15. That is 12 points avoided for the cost efficiency ratio and three points avoided for the quality of the calculation. The total scoring is different for each of these topics however meaning that the weight of the cost efficiency will differ between the topics that you apply for. The weight of the cost efficiency is the highest for the general topic but when we look into the EV batteries we can see that the total number of points available for the cost efficiency for the EV batteries is six. Out of a total score of 108 points this leads us to having 5.5% weighted on the cost efficiency score here. So it really depends on how much of a weight is put on the cost efficiency ratio. So what have we learned so far? We encourage you to select a grant amount that will add value to your project. So you want to receive funding which will de-risk your project enable you to reach FID and make your project more attractive for other investors and financial institutions. Getting all 12 points on the cost efficiency might not be the ultimate cost efficiency. So if you need to apply for a higher grant to secure a higher grant amount to make your project bankable then it might be a good idea to sacrifice a bit on these points. And lastly your cost efficiency will mean all state aid support. So any other public support from other EU programs such as feed-in tariffs, contracts for difference or and that this is which have been included or which will be included during the project lifetime. So now I would like to invite Marianne back onto stage with me. Thank you Goldberg for a very good summary of the cost efficiency criteria. If you have any questions regarding the cost efficiency criteria please feel free to put it into the questions tool here. It seems like we have a rather quiet crowd today. But feel free to do so there if you have anything. I have a question for you regarding the relevant cost methodology. Is it required for the cost efficiency criteria? Is it required for applicants to justify the methodology that they use or is it fine to just use it as is? So it's a good question. So if you go for the default option, the one with no reference font, you will not need to justify why that is the right methodology for you. If you go for the reference font then the burden of proof is very high. You will need to provide so much documentation and arguments for why this is the right method for you. And in the cold documents they have described how to distinguish which is the right approach. Okay, perfect. Given that there aren't any questions popping in and let's maybe end the session here. And if you do have further questions for running cost efficiency, feel free to pop pop that into the questions. And well this wraps it up for the cost efficiency criteria. Let's move into a five minute break. So we'll see you back in five minutes. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Move. Bye. Thank you. All right. Welcome back everyone from the break. And we have here with me today, Valentin, welcome to the studio. Thank you. Glad to be here again. Yes. This next part is around finding the sweet spot between innovation and maturity. And Valentin will take you through the maturity criteria. As we get started, let's start off with a poll. So how mature would you say your project will be by the time of submission application? A, very mature. B, quite mature. C, not quite mature. And D, not mature at all. So feel free to go directly into the poll and answer this question. And in the meantime, based on this topic of finding that sweet spot between innovation and maturity, Valentin, what do you think is the most important consideration when going about this key topic? Yeah, I think, I mean, there are multiple considerations. Maybe one of the considerations that is not that obvious, especially when scoping the project and starting to develop the application is the consideration around the risk appetite. Because there is risk per definition behind such innovation technology. And it's not only about mitigating the risk. It's also about accepting what risks can you take. Yeah. And also accepting some risk as part of the project, as part of the financial plan, as part of the operations, as part of the technical solution, and making contingency plan for that risk. So I think that would be a really interesting discussion that I recommend, you know, like everybody, when scoping the project to have, you know, not only what is the risk avoidance, but also what is the risk appetite that you go for. That's a very interesting perspective to put it that way. Yeah. Perfect. And looking at the poll, we see a division in the middle between quite mature and not quite mature. And I think that's exactly what we suspected. And I think at this point, I think maybe people are a bit shy to say that it would be very mature and maybe not mature at all. Then maybe it would be difficult to get that threshold and points. And so, yeah, it seems like 70% is quite mature. They're aware of the gaps. And working to close them. And then some in the not quite mature, as in you need to really ramp up the resources and efforts required to really mature the project. So thank you so much for engaging with us in that poll. And I will now pass it over to you to cover the maturity topic. Yes. Thank you. So when it comes to maturity, there are three elements in assessing a project maturity. I think you've also heard this from my colleagues. It's about the technical maturity, which is the feasibility to achieve the project outputs. It's the operational maturity, which is about the credibility of the plan and the credibility of the capabilities to achieve the milestones that you have set in the project. And last but not least, it's about the financial maturity. And last but not least, it's about the financial maturity. The ability to reach financial close as soon as possible and within four years, but do that in a credible manner. What we're going to start with right now is with looking at the technical and operational maturity. Then we're going to have a look at the financial maturity afterwards. The technical maturity basically ensures that the technical setup is credible and can deliver the outcome promised by the project. There are multiple elements in the technical maturity, but to kind of structure it in a more easy way to get the picture right here is that you need to describe and cover the project site, that is the logistics, the permits, the regulations that need to be in place, the utilities, it could be access to grid capacity, for example. You also need to describe the links to other projects, the dependencies, the technical dependencies to other projects, and of course, to provide a holistic picture about the project itself by looking also at the public acceptance, because we've also seen projects that need to address the challenge of public acceptance because of the location, for example, of the project site. Second of all, it's about the plant itself. And here is not specifically about the technology, but there is the aspect of what is the scope of the solution. We have also seen and we can see also projects that cover one part of multiple assets, of multiple technologies on a site. And there needs to be a clear description of what is it that is in the scope of this application if there are other assets around the plant. And then on the technology and process themselves, you need to make sure that the feedstock and the input materials are described, that the technology characteristics are clear and the performance of the technology is described as well. And then, of course, the output volumes, the output volumes, the characteristics, the economics are also described and covered as part of this technical maturity. So this is the big picture. And when demonstrating technical maturity, we see some best practices that we also want to share with you. And that is firstly, is that what helps a lot is a clear understanding of the technology and its readiness. That is important both for the messages in the application, but also for the other aspects in terms of innovation, in terms of the risks and so on. Then you need to have credible and robust assumptions. These assumptions around the technology need to be backed by maybe some supplier information, supplier quotes. It needs to be backed by, ideally, some pilot projects. Everything that can be used should be used here because it's not only about describing the technology, but doing that in a credible manner. The third thing is coherence across data, across messages, and across documents. We've seen some shortcomings, unfortunately, because it's an easy fix sometimes, but in the rush of finalizing the application, sometimes we can see that there's discrepancies across the data and the documents. So that is one of the best practices. And please remember to ensure that consistency. It's the feasibility study is the business plan is the business plan and so on. And then there needs to be a comprehensive understanding of the technology risks because it is innovative technology. Intrinsically, it has risks. And then these need to be clearly elaborated and then the mitigations need to be also clearly described and needs to be credible as well. This requires that you need to ensure that the engineering fundamentals are basically in pace. That's mass energy balances, for example. You need to ensure coherence between the engineering and then the business plan. So it's a ramp up schedules, the volumes at different stages in the ramp up and then close down of the production. Then input factors, then input factors, asset lifetime, and so on. And again, this is a must-have and it would be a pity to actually lose points because of such differences. Then provide a basis for the cost assumptions that are used in the business plan and financial model. So the breakdown of CAPEX, for example, the different elements in the CAPEX. Then because there are some specific requirements when applying for the innovation fund, then we need to pay attention to all the considerations and the specific requirements. It's about the construction, explaining the construction process, procurement process, supplier strategy, supplier management, permitting, IP, and so on. It just needs to be in there. So follow the call document and the requirements that are in there for this part of the application. And last but not least, as mentioned, address the technology and also the technological risks in a credible manner. On the operational side, the key message here is that realism actually trumps optimism. It's easy to be optimistic about the ability to reach the different milestones, but that needs to be balanced because you would need to present a convincing case, but also when you receive the funding, those milestones and the payments will be based on some milestones. So you also need, per default, to be certain and realistic about reaching those milestones of the project. In terms of operational maturity, some of the key recommendations is making sure that you have the right team, the organization, the capabilities. Then making sure that you have robust processes for managing risks and quality at different stages of the project because it would require different approaches depending on where you are in the project lifetime. You need to have a realistic plan for delivering on the ambitions. So consider also putting maybe some buffers and then explaining why some buffers are needed. And then of course it's also about risks, barriers, so understanding, having a comprehensive understanding of these barriers and also the overall project environment and how the outside environment actually influences the project development and the project operation. Concretely, that means that you need to have a strong strategy for reaching the different milestones. It needs to be explicit and described. Then you need to have a project governance in place. Then you need to have a project governance in place and that is not just a picture with names and functions and arrows. It needs to cover the different decision processes, the different inputs, the different mandates that are needed for the project to be executed. Then it's about a strategy to secure and grow relevant capabilities because in the project development phase, you probably Then in the project operation phase and the application will not cover all the capabilities that are needed in the operation phase, but the plan of how to ensure those capabilities needs to be solid. Then also back to the uncertainties and the risks, there needs to be an understanding and a clear approach to handling the regulatory conditions, for example, if these represent a risk and a blocker for the project. And then just the whole approach to risk management. So not only the risks, but how to handle the risks also when they, the risks that are not obvious right now and they appear, how are these managed and handled. And that is basically, basically, it's a lot of requirements actually, but it is what it takes actually to prove the operational maturity because this is what gives the holistic picture besides the technical maturity, having, being able to improve the operational maturity. So that's the technical and operational maturity. And now I would like to deep dive on the financial maturity. We had a session previously where we looked at the question of profitability and with a reminder that it's not only about profitability, but it's very much about the credibility. And I would like to go closer right now to what does it mean to show financial maturity and also be a bit more specific on the how to handle some of the risk related questions behind the financial maturity. To demonstrate the financial maturity, you need to have a credible and robust commercial and also financial plan and also to address the underlying risks. First of all, as you probably know, you need to reach financial close as soon as possible and no later than four years after grant agreement. But it's not only about that. It's about backing this ambition and these milestones with a credible business model, looking both on the revenue side, the cost side, looking at the profitability, making sure that you have strong and clear profitability projections that back up the whole financial model and are described in the financial model. And also that you have the relevant shareholder support, especially in those cases where you have a low profitability in the project. Then the application also needs to present a robust and credible strategy to secure both the supply and offtake contracts. So what are the milestones? What is the approach? What are the characteristics? What are the considerations when you choose the right suppliers, the right offtakers? And what does the pipeline look like? How do you mature the pipeline towards the final investment decision and the financial close? Then, obviously, the project needs to be financed. So you need to have a solid financial plan. It needs to be aligned with the project milestones. And then it needs to secure the need to be financed. So you need to have a solid financing at the different stages in the project. And make sure that the capital structure and also that the debt terms, that these are in line with the project risks and the project returns. Number four, having a clear understanding of the business and the financial risks is critical. Besides understanding them, these needs to be described. The mitigation actions need to be concrete, credible, and also paying specific attention to the dependencies of other projects or other parts in the value chain. Because many times we see that these applications and these projects are covering only one part in the value chain. But the whole value chain needs to be built, needs to be developed to ensure that the project is a success. So remember that macro perspective as well and focusing on the dependencies there is critical. And repeating myself maybe here, it's about the credibility of the application. Just providing high quality, reliable, well-founded information in the application to ensure that the feasibility and credibility is there. So these are the five key takeaways in terms of demonstrating financial maturity. And when demonstrating financial maturity and thinking how can you ensure excellence because it is a competitive process and because it is challenging to ensure and secure the funding. So taking it to the next level will require you to think of how can you accelerate some of the processes that you have towards the financial close. That means concretely that typically in the phase before the innovation fund application, you do the project feasibility and business model validation, develop a business plan, the consortium and partnership development will also take place. Then you start developing some customer and supplier LOIs. And then you do a financing plan and prepare for securing the relevant financing. After the innovation fund application, you'll continue developing the project. And what normally happens towards the final investment decision is concretely signing those contracts. Of course, some of them will be pending FID. Then both on the customer side and also on the supplier side. And also signing and ensuring that the financing contracts are in place. The consideration here you need to make in order to reach that excellence in financial maturity is are there any aspects or activities that would typically happen after the innovation fund application that you can actually accelerate? Can you front load some of this concretely? Can you be more specific on the customer contracts, on the supplier contracts, on the supplier contracts? On the strategy there. Can you mature the pipeline even more? Can you mitigate some risks and act on mitigating those risks already in the process of developing the application? So consider moving from the must-have to the excellence level, accelerating some of the processes that typically would also happen after the innovation fund application. Now the new call. In the new call, you can see that there is an attachment appendix with some specifics on what kind of documentation that needs to be provided. This is, we think, very helpful and very much needed because it's difficult sometimes to navigate between what is a must-have, what is a nice-to-have, and so on. So please make also sure that you read through that. But sharing the key takeaways from that add-on to the current call is that you basically have two types of documentation. You have the project funding support, which should demonstrate a credible commitment from the stakeholders and also evidence progress towards financial close. And then you have the project contract terms, where the purpose there is to validate the business plan assumptions, commitments from counterparties, from suppliers, from off-takers, constructors, partners, and so on. So these are the two types of documents that you need to make sure that you provide to, again, strengthen the credibility of the assumptions and application. For the project funding support, some of the key requirements are related to the documentation from shareholders. So you need to have signed MOUs, letter of intent or support covering the project scope, the funding amount, the strategic importance for the shareholders, and the different decision timelines. It is very essential to have signed MOUs. It is very essential to have this in place and to be specific about the commitment, especially in the low profitability projects that would strengthen the commitment for covering the costs and the cash flows that need to be incurred during the lifetime of the project. Then there is a key requirement to provide the documentation from lenders. These are letters of support, indicative term sheets outlining the debt structure, the involvement of the lender, and then the specific timelines for the expected credit. And if there is a key requirement to provide the credit. And if there is a key requirement to provide the credit. And if there is the case that you also have letters of support from authorities, and of course it would be recommended to have some of these depending on the challenges that you would address, but make sure that these are there. And also if you have additional funding from other sources, make sure that it's clear what this funding is, what the funding program details are, the status, and then and then what are the steps towards financial close and afterwards. Essentially, you need to include in this documents, the entity and signature information, project specific references, the strategic importance, alignment with proposal scope, and also again, the funding structure and timeline for final decision. So that is what needs to be the structure or covered in the structure of the document. For the project contract terms. For the project contract terms. In terms of a joint development project. Make sure that you have the roles, the cost allocation, the decision processes, the milestones, and the agreed duration clearly described. And you of course need to have the relevant documentation for the off-day contracts for the supply contracts. For the supply contracts. For the supply contracts. In terms of construction. Make sure that they detail the parties, the scope, volume, pricing, and so on. And imagining this document specifically, it is essential to include specific project references, alignment, strategic alignment, especially talking about the joint development projects, the defined terms of cooperation, clear timelines, key conditions for the milestones, such as financial close, final investment decision, and so on, and then specifically also for the off-take and supply contracts. Be specific on the product or the input material, on the volumes, on the supply or off-take terms, so duration and other characteristics, and of course on the pricing. So that is just kind of an overview of what needs to be in place. And I hope that this would also help you when developing and securing that you have all this supporting documentation. Because again, it really is essential to proving the credibility of the assumptions, either in the technical or the operational or the financial maturity. Now, I mentioned credibility many times. But equally, I also mentioned the risk many times. And I'm mentioning this because the approach to risk management is often pointed out as a key shortcoming in many of the evaluations. So I would just like to bring this on the table because it's maybe not the obvious thing to prioritize when developing the application. Our experience is also that it's something that is happening while you develop the business plan, the feasibility study, and so on. And then it just gets accelerated towards the application deadline. And sometimes some shortcomings sneak in. And we can also see that in the evaluations that come back and the scoring that comes back. So what I want to share as a key takeaway here is that the application needs to present the top technical operation and financial risk and propose mitigating measures. Do not down-prioritize this. Make sure it is clearly described. Make sure you have a risk log that covers not only the risk description on the likelihood, but also the impact, but also the impact, but also the impact, but also the impact, the ownership of the risk, also in relationship to the whole project governance. Then, of course, the proposed mitigating measures. Typically, you'd see, you know, you'd build up a heat map also, prioritize some of these risks based maybe on likelihood and consequence, and also make sure in the business plan that there is a clear link between the risk, especially the risk, especially the top risk and the sensitivity analysis that is made in the business plan. So you have a red thread between the risks and the whole financial model and the business plan. What, you know, another thing is that just to make sure that you map all the risks, try to think comprehensively. Remember that there are risks in the risks in the projects. Remember that there are risks in the project design, so you have risks between the different activities in the project. You have risks at different processes, at different stages in the project. And, of course, you have risks and different types of risks when you look at an organization or a consortium, because some parties might bring along a higher or lower risk, depending on the role that they have in the project. So remember to have this comprehensive approach to finding all the risks and just make sure that you do not underplay the presence of risks. Underplaying doesn't make a risk management strategy more credible. Being realistic around the risks, being concrete around the approach to mitigate the risks is actually what shows a credible risk management strategy and proves a credible risk management strategy. What I would also like to bring here is a concrete example on how to manage risk in the investment case for an innovative technology. This is one of the key discussions or more typical discussions we see and we hear and we're part of sometimes when we help with developing applications. When looking at the risk, first of all, it is, of course, clear that there is a high level of intrinsic risk because the market is immature. There is a long depreciation time. The technology is immature. So the risk is there. As I mentioned also in the beginning, it's not only about risk mitigation, but also understanding the risk appetite. So balancing how much risk are you willing to actually take. It could be that you accept some market exposure. It could be that you accept some other to cover some other parts of the value chain. So thinking risk appetite besides risk mitigation is important to have that holistic picture of how do you handle risk and balance that against the innovation of the project. The risk allocation in itself and the mitigation are key to making the case bankable, financeable. So you need to consider how concretely between the owners of the risk, between the different parts of the project, between the different elements of the value chain, where is it that you allocate this risk and what is the implication? And that could lead to how concretely between the risk. And that could lead you, and we have also seen this, that you will need to consider partnerships. You need to consider developing the project sometimes with some stakeholders that are not naturally obvious when developing the project idea because some partners could cover some parts of the risk and it could be an essential tool for handling this risk. So just in that logic of framing the project, acknowledge that there is a risk. Think of risk not only as a risk mitigation, but also consideration of risk appetite. And then try to think of are you the natural risk owner or the natural entity that can handle this risk? Or do you need to partner up to actually ensure that there is a risk? So that the innovation is balanced with a risk approach. So that was a more concrete example of one of the typical discussions and topics we face, especially in the beginning in scoping the projects. To sum up now, the key takeaways here is that on the technical maturity, the technical maturity itself is the project and application foundation. So ensure that the engineering fundamentals are in place. So ensure that the engineering fundamentals are in place, that the technology, the technology readiness, and then the risks behind the technology are clearly understood and that these risks are comprehensively addressed. On the operational maturity, the message here is that realism trumps optimism, ensuring that you have the right team, organization, and capabilities behind the project. And that you also have the right capabilities and organization and team will be there towards the financial close, towards the entry of the operation and during the whole operational period. Ensure that you think outside in also that the project environment is considered in describing the operational maturity of the project and that you address the barriers comprehensively and that you understand them. Lastly, on the financial maturity, back also to the message that I gave last time, profitability is not the whole story, but credibility is. I hope you take this with you because it does require to ensure a credible and robust commercial, but also financing plan and that the underlying risks are clearly addressed, not only in the risk register, but also across the business plan. So thinking what would the challenges would be for developing the projects. So thinking what would the challenges be for developing the projects? What are the key messages that built an equity story, convincing equity story that is actually tackling all these challenges in such a nascent technology and maybe nascent value chain? So these are the key takeaways on project maturity. And I don't know if there are any questions I'm looking at about my colleague. Yeah, and we'll have a short Q&A. I don't think there was any questions at least from the crowd regarding maturity, but I have two questions for you on some of the topics you've covered. So should projects have a specific volume of offtake secured by when they're applying for the EUIF or by the time of financial close? So is it necessary to have a very specific volume already secured by then? The short question is no. What is necessary is that the volume secured is in line with the offtake strategy. Because to give two extreme situations, you can have a strategy where you need to have all the offtake covered by the time of financial close. So that means you need to go out there and make sure that you conclude those contracts for 100% of the volume that you produce. But you can also have a strategy where you believe maybe that the short-term market would be more attractive. So you'd like to maybe just ensure commitment for 60% or 70% of the product, but leave the 20% or 30% to the market, have that merchant risk exposure, and maybe capitalize on better prices. But that offtake strategy and that risk that is intrinsic in the market exposure needs to also be backed by the commitment made by the shareholders and the project. So make sure that there's consistency in the storytelling and in the messages and that all the documentation is in place to actually back up if you have such an exposure. Yeah, definitely. And one more question is around are small developers penalized on the evaluation on financial maturity? So talking about maybe some of the smaller projects that may not have a robust team already in place if it's coming from a large company. So are these maybe startup scale-ups penalized on the financial maturity criteria more than others maybe? No, that is not a criteria. No, that is not a criteria. The size of the organization. What needs to be in place here, not only on financial maturity, but also thinking operational maturity, is having the right capabilities at this stage of the project. Yep. Making sure that the capabilities can help you and that are in place to reach the financial close, which is the upcoming major milestone. And equally have a plan, if you don't have the capabilities to operate the project, then have a plan to ensure those capabilities. Yeah. Obviously, if you don't have the capabilities, obviously, if you have the capabilities, it would strengthen the maturity. But again, we are in the situation, we have innovative projects. Yeah. And it is obvious that you'll have some projects that are less in scale and have an organization that is more of a startup organization than an established organization. Yeah. Definitely. Perfect. I think that's all for the questions. And now if we just move on to the next slide, on to the next part. And so this wraps up the first section of this topic, finding the sweet spot between innovation and maturity. And I will now invite my colleague Sarah over to talk more about the innovation criteria. Well done. All right. So for the last 30 minutes of the day, we'll be looking at the other side of the coin. So we first look at how greenhouse gas avoidance should balance with the cost efficiency of your grand ask. Valentin has told you about maturity. And now we're going to look at how should this balance with the innovation of your project. So to do that, we're going to look at how does the innovation of innovation and how you can go about it when you present your project to the EU. The first thing to notice when you go through this innovation fund call is to see that the EU defines the type of activities that are eligible in the different calls in slightly different ways. And that gives you already an indication of the type of innovation. And that gives you already an indication of the type of innovation they're looking into. So if you are applying in the general window, so small, medium, large scale call there, the call really tells us that this is about projects that will be advancing low carbon technologies and processes in ETS covered sectors. But that this would also be projects that will also be advancing. But that this would also be projects that are advancing technologies in the field of renewable energy and energy storage, as well as projects that are advancing carbon capture and storage. So this first type of call is really centered around technology and processes type of innovation. The second thing is if you apply in the clean tech manufacturing sector, then the innovation is much more to be looking at the clean tech manufacturing sector, then the innovation is much more to be looked in terms of is the project producing innovative products or deploying innovative production processes. So we are very much looking at what is going on inside the plant and what is coming out of the plant. In pilot, they define innovation as more breakthrough and disruptive. Again, more focused on the technology side, but with a much much higher level of innovation. And lastly, if you are considering the battery call there, they define innovation much more broadly by looking at the final product performance, innovation in the battery production process, scaling activity that would lead to a broader deployment of batteries in the EV segment. All of this comes to say that innovation innovation is not only about the product, it's really looking at technologies, processes, sometimes even process steps. In the call itself, it does not target fully business model or innovations that are linked to services. This is very much in scope to argue for your innovation. The point being that if you only have business model innovation, you will not be necessarily the obvious candidate for the obvious candidate for the fund. You will need to balance it out with technology, process or product type of innovations. The other thing to note is that the degree of innovation will play a different role in the evaluation of your project depending on the topic that you are applying to. So if you are applying in the pilot or the clean tech manufacturing, the amount of points that you get on innovation will be the most important. So if you are applying in the evaluation that you get on innovation corresponds to roughly a third of the evaluation. So we are looking at if you are applying in those windows, you would want to argue that your project is rather quite innovative. In the general decarbonization topic, their innovation is very much balanced with the other criteria, about 20%. But if you are applying in the battery call, then it only amounts to 9%. So it's much more beneficial to be mature and sustainable project compared to being the most innovative if you are in the battery call. So the first key takeaway on the degree of innovation is really that the amount of points that you will get will very much depends on the window you apply. And therefore, your focus on arguing for innovation will also depend on the topic you're in. What's also important to note is that across all of those topics, there is a minimum threshold. So a minimum level of innovation that you need to propose to the EU. We'll get back onto that. And another thing to note is because we are trying to define that sweet spot between innovation and maturity, we are usually looking at rather mature technologies, which would have a starting TRL around seven or eight, typically in the general window. slightly lower if you are applying for pilot. But that you will, in any case, if your starting point is lower, you will need to show that there is a very clear path to maturity. How do you present innovation in the dossier? That is actually rather simple, but don't overestimate the work. In itself, you have to fill in section one in the part B application templates where you will be asked to define the state of the art and how your innovation goes beyond that state of the art. To argue for this, you will need to provide a lot of the basis for your argumentation and substantiation in supporting documents that could be the feasibility study, the business plan or other documents that you may have, such as technology, due diligence, due diligence, or IP search and the like. So the end game with the innovation is really to position your project compared to the state of the art. So how do we define it? The EU defines it in several ways. We will be looking at the commercial state of the art. So that is what is the commercially available solution that is the most similar to what you're proposing in your application. We will also be looking at the technological state of the art. So what are already demonstrated technologies at the highest TRL known and how does that compare to yours? And what's also very important to note is that they will also ask you to position what is the playing field in terms of those projects that have been funded by the innovation fund and what are the innovative elements that may have already been demonstrated demonstrated or will be demonstrated when the awarded projects go live. The one thing to note, so we go on, we look at the commercial, technological and innovation fund state of the art. The scope of your state of the art analysis is very much focused at EU level with the exception of the small scale topic where you can argue for the state of the art at national level. So if technology is demonstrated outside of Europe, this is technically not part of the state of the art analysis that you need to provide. Then to argue on your innovation, you will want to show that your innovation is different compared to what is offered today on the market by existing vendors, that maybe your product or innovation is not currently offered on the EU market, that the experience of the market is not currently offered. that the expected outcomes, that the expected outcomes outperform existing solutions, and that you are advancing the readiness level of this technology. And optimally, you would also want to argue that your innovation is outperforming other technologies that are in development. So very, very concretely, it's also very much transcribed in the in the call. Innovation and the degree of innovation has this notion of advancement. So we are moving the needle in terms of technology, commercial and system readiness level. So yes, there's a very strong focus on TRL. That being said, there is also options to argue for increase in commercial and system readiness level. And that is particularly relevant for projects that would be combining mature technologies in a novel way. And you have seen this before in our very first session, but just to give a small refresh, on innovation, when your project is about incremental improvements, so where no significant new knowledge will be created, you will be deemed ineligible. So your evaluation, your application will not be evaluated. If the the evaluators deemed that your innovation is new or propose some considerably changed technologies or processes, combine mature technologies in a novel way, and so on, you will be deemed between intermediate to strong innovation. And if you're really moving the needle and bringing in some completely new technologies or processes, breakthrough technologies with a very strong increase in TRL, then you will be able to be able to evolve. Then you will be top of the scale in the degree of innovation, and be then close to a breakthrough. This is, of course, the area where you want to be if you are considering to apply in the pilot. The one thing that, again, as I have said in the previous slide, is important, is this notion of advancement. So we want to see an increase in the TRL or the system readiness level, which will be more significant if we are looking at very strong breakthrough innovations. Often when we speak about the innovation fund, I mean, it's in the name of it, we want to see innovations and a lot of projects that are working every day in the PTX or CCUS space may argue, yeah, but is the project really innovative? The thing to note is that at least every year, there are some projects that fail on the degree of innovation, but this is not one of the criteria that really disqualifies a lot of applications. So of course, you should make sure that what you're proposing is not incremental innovation, but the risk itself is rather low. The question is more how do you optimize points to make sure that you get as much on the criteria as possible? You get as much on this category as possible. So very concretely, if we look at some of the numbers, there's every year roughly around 50% of applicants that fail passing one of the minimum thresholds and of those 13 fail on the degree of innovation. So it's not quite as bad as when we look at maturity. So to wrap up on the degree of innovation, the first thing that I think is really important to note is that you need to benchmark your project compared to what has already been funded by the innovation fund. So previous winners define a benchmark that you need to live up to, even though those projects may not have reached operations. So also the longer you wait to apply and the more projects are selected, the tougher the entry barrier. The second is, yes, there is a very strong focus on the TRL. But do not forget or underestimate to argue the degree of innovation of your project on the basis of commercial or system readiness levels. And lastly, yes, there's always a good story to be told, but we want that story to be fact-based and substantiated. So we need to see data and be able to compare numbers in terms of performance indicators, cost, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on, compared to other innovations and technologies. To wrap up today, I will touch upon now the last criteria, which is more a criterion that puts your project in perspective with some of the ambitions the EU has as an investor. This is a very complex title, of investor. We have a very complex type of investor. We have a very complex type of investor. We have looked into this in our previous session. And the one thing to note is that it is a political type of investor. So when they're looking at your project, they're looking to ensure sustainable growth and competition and competitiveness of Europe on the global scene. And that's really what this replicability criterion is about. In September, with the release of the Draghi report, I think this was really the talk of town in the of Brussels, Brussels, and Brussels, really showing that actually the EU is facing an existential challenge. We are realizing that the clean tech manufacturing battle is very much an uphill battle. We realize there's very tough economics to link, to bring those new technologies to maturity. Yet they are key if we are to become the first climate neutral continent by 2050. So it has highlighted some very clear ambitions also for the EU closing the innovation gap. This is partly the instrument for this, however perfect or imperfect it is. There is also a very strong focus on EU level to link the decarbonization agenda with the industrial policy agenda and EU competitiveness. And there's a very clear intention to increase security of the continent in terms of supply critical materials, key technologies and reduce dependencies, for instance, on critical raw materials or strategic net zero technologies. So the replicability criterion will very much look at how do you contribute on those objectives. To do that, this evaluation criterion is divided into three parts. One that will look at efficiency gains and multiple environmental impacts. One that will look at the potential for further deployment of the innovation or technology that is in the project. And lastly, it will also look at how you contribute to Europe's industrial leadership and competitiveness goals. All of this gives you 15 points. which in the general buckets is 20% of the points, just as any other criteria. In terms of the work that needs to be done. This is again, very much centered in part B, where we'll be looking at those different aspects. But as for the degree of innovation, this should be fact based, quite an analytical piece of work that needs to be done with some scenario playing on how, how could this grow. But you need to substantiate it from the annexes that you attach to the application. So the first thing is on efficiency gains and multiple environmental impact. And for this, the question is really, how does your project help the EU overcome constraints and create impact on the short to long term time horizon? And that is, this time horizon is actually quite important to look at what is your project's contribution while Europe is transitioning to a climate neutral continent and economy versus how does this look like when we are, in theory, reaching climate neutrality? What we will want to see is that your project will lead to efficiency gains in terms of cost reduction, reduced risk of critical raw material that will potentially boost recycling rates and so on. We will also look at how does your project take into account other environmental impacts such as biodiversity, air and water quality. And it will very much be quantitative analysis needed to substantiate the fact that your project will cut costs and make those very promising decarbonization technologies available on the market. The second aspect of it is really telling the story to the EU on how your project will help conquer the world. So the technology you are developing, you are demonstrating in the plan, in the plan, or in a specific ship, or any other type of asset that your project is about. We will want to understand what is your plan as a project developer to grow this within your own constraints. So potentially expanding capacity on site, adding vessels to your fleet and so on. But also how will you engage with other actors to boost the spread of the technology that you are promoting? And by doing so, you will reconnect with the absolute greenhouse gas methodology to say, if our technology could be deployed in 50 other different types of assets in Europe, it will amount to this amount of greenhouse gas avoidance. Then we will look at your policy contribution. So very much linking it to net zero industry act, critical raw material act, the industrial carbon management strategy, and so on and so forth, to see how does your project help the EU achieve its own policy goals? So how do you support the creation of new industrial ecosystems and value chains? How do you build technology technologies and capabilities in Europe on some of those key technologies? How do you create resilience and ensure sustainability in the supply chain? As well as how do you reduce dependency on, for example, China for the supply of electrolyzers or batteries? So when you are awarded, you will have an obligation as a public funded project to communicate and disseminate. And that is also part of how you can achieve the impact that you put forward in the replicability section. So you will need to share the learnings from your project to ensure that others can learn and replicate what you have been demonstrating in your project. They have removed the knowledge sharing plan requirement from the application stage. But this is something that you will need to submit if or when you are selected during the grant agreement negotiation stage. That knowledge sharing plan should be a specific strategy piece for your project on how to communicate and disseminate the learnings. When you implement the project, then you will be asked to also report on some specific KPIs through knowledge sharing and disseminate the learnings. through knowledge sharing reports. You can actually see a template of this on the call page. You will need to update your KSP and you will need, of course, to set up a website and carry out any other communication dissemination activities that you lay out in your KSP. Altogether, what's good to note is that as for the degree of innovation, the claims that you make on replicability and degree of innovation will be something that you will need to be able to do. If that is not the case, then the grant may be reduced. So on the replicability criterion, I think we may say this a lot, but we also speak from experience and that is really the focus should be on quantification and substantiation. It's not about making bold claims that you cannot back with analysis. So bring in the evidence that is needed for the claims that you make in the replicability criterion. Do not underestimate this criterion. It is worth 20% of the points, just as much as maturity, greenhouse gas avoidance and so on. So it does deserve your attention in the sense that it would be quite inefficient to lose points on this criterion. And also give a bit of excitement to the evaluators that will be reading your application. This is about making Europe great again. So show the evaluators how you can make that ambition come true. So I think this wraps it up for today. Marian, maybe is there any new questions in the chat we should be addressing? We don't have any new questions, but I have a couple from the backlog and one being the regarding the state aid applied for and if the project decides to apply for a state aid after the EUIF grant, how does it come to play and how is it impacted? Yeah, that's a very technical question. So for the first, if you are considering state aid as part of the financing, this is something that you need to have in the application. And this will impact the credibility of your financing plan as well as your cost efficiency ratio. So when you know you are in the process of applying, have obtained or will obtain state aid, you need to indicate it at application stage. If this is not something you are aware at this stage, but it comes later during the grant agreement process or when the project is starting to kick in, you will need to refer to the specific state aid rules that apply. that will be a bit different depending on the type of public funding support you're looking into. And you will have an obligation to inform CINEA on this. Gotcha. Perfect. We had one other question in the chat regarding confidentiality. A lot of the documentation that goes into the application is a lot of confidential information. And could you put a few words into how the EU handles that and certain elements in which might be public versus private information only for the evaluators to see? Yeah, it's very clear. Only there's only the abstract that you submit at that stage that can be containing information that the EU will share. When you are invited, you then need to develop a project fish with some of the key information being being published, but you have full control of what is being informed. The second thing is, yeah, everything is treated with utmost confidentiality. So we will need to see that like the evaluators are signing NDAs. The EU is providing all of this. So there is a lot of guarantee. Do not withdraw on some of the information because you fear of this. There is some very strict processes on the EU side for this. Yeah, definitely. And my last question regarding and relating to replicability is now that the knowledge sharing plan is not part of the deliverables. And is there a place in part be an other elements of the documentation where you can showcase that criteria because I think the knowledge sharing plan was definitely a key deliverable we saw last year versus this year? Yeah. And there will be a small section in part B under replicability where you need to give an outline of what your KSP ambitions will be. Okay. But you do not need to provide a 60 page deliverable, which is nice for newcomers. But the ones that are resubmitting, at least if you are invited for the grant agreement process, you already have a good basis to to tweak from. Yeah, perfect. Then I think that wraps it up for the questions for today. And we will skip over to the last part, which is around the wrap up. And thank you for today. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming all the way till the end of this webinar with us today. We will wrap it up with four key takeaways. So first of all, make sure that all of the documentation in your application is fact-based. And well substantiated. So if there's any type of claims that you're making for your technology, anything on innovation, make sure that it's well substantiated and documented throughout the application. Secondly, the criterion weightings versus the effort does not equal one to one. Be aware that there is an imbalance between the weighting of how much a criterion is versus the amount of effort that is required to sufficiently demonstrate it. So for example, the maturity criterion time and time again is one of the criteria that is the most difficult and that is the most difficult and the most difficult and applicants struggle the most with. However, the full 15 points is the exact same as, for example, the replicability criterion. So definitely the effort required does not actually equal the weighting of the actual criteria. Third, I think we've mentioned this prior to as well, but think of this as a data room situation rather than actual application writing. The IF process is quite complicated. At first, we've mentioned that at the moment portal such as well. but it's also about how substantiated is it and how credible can those claims actually be to have your project forward. So that wraps it up for today's webinar. Looking at the timeline here today, we have another webinar today at one o'clock where it focuses on the hydrogen auction. So if any of you are interested in that, feel free to tune in for that one. There is the info days hosted by Cineya and the EU next week on the 17th and 18th of December. So if you want to get more information directly from the EU on this, I highly encourage you to all tune into that. And finally, there are info days happening on January 9th next year. It's the national info day hosted by Klaus and Olivia from the Danish Energy Agency, along with Cineya, who will have representatives in Denmark. So if you want one-to-one feedback and sessions from Cineya, this is the place and time to go. And finally, don't forget the key deadlines, the 20th of February for the hydrogen auction and the 24th of April for the Innovation Fund. And that leaves us with 133 days left in this year's Innovation Fund season. So if you're keen to apply, I highly recommend starting early and starting today rather than later. Thank you again for dialing in with us today and hope to see you soon in the hydrogen auction or from now. Good luck with the rest of the application. Thank you.