Promoting energy efficiency and process heat from renewable energy sources in the economy – Funding option: competition

The Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) promotes measures in the area of energy efficiency and process heat in the economy by way of a competitive procedure. Only the most efficient projects of an application round will be selected for funding, the criterion being the annual CO2 savings achieved per euro of funding.

The following entities may apply:

private companies
municipal companies
contractors
members of liberal professions

Measures eligible for funding:

process and procedural transition as well as optimisation of production processes
use of waste heat
supply of heat, cooling and ventilation in the production process
supply of process heat or cooling
avoidance of energy losses in the production process
sensor technology as well as instrumentation and control engineering
development of an energy saving plan and assistance with implementation

The following requirements must be met to be eligible for funding:

submission of an energy saving plan
period of amortisation without funding > 4 years
period of implementation of up to 3 years
in the case of planned contracting, conclusion of a separate contractor agreement
3 years’ compliance with the obligation to use renewable energy Funding will be granted to finance up to 50% of additional investment costs, including ancillary costs, however, up to the limit of EUR 5 million per project.

Applications can be submitted from 15 April 2019 onwards on an ongoing basis, but projects to be funded will be selected as part of competition rounds held on specific dates. The next such date is 30 June 2019. The application round can be closed earlier if the available budget is exhausted due to the number of submitted projects. Applications should be submitted to the competent project management firm VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH.