NER300

The Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA) leads the European Commission's efforts to fight climate change at the EU and international level. Under this mission, the funding programme NER 300 has been able to pool together around EUR 2 Billion for the purpose of facilitating results in new innovative low-carbon technologies, while simultaneously focusing on the demonstration of environmentally safe Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), and innovative renewable energy technologies on a commercial scale within the EU.

The NER 300 programme took its name from the sale of 300 million emission allowances from the New Entrants' Reserve (NER) set up for the third phase of the EU emissions trading system (EU ETS). The funds from the sales have been distributed to projects selected through two rounds of calls for proposals, covering 200 and 100 million allowances respectively.

Under the programme two calls for proposals were carried out, one occurred in 2012 and another in 2014, in which the European commission awarded over EUR 1 Billion to more than 15 projects in both cases. Currently, Further NER 300 calls for proposals are not planned. The Commission now focuses on the projects already selected for funding and on preparing the first call under the new Innovation Fund.