European Commission greenlights Finland’s support scheme for biofuel storage

In Belgium, European Commission has approved a €2.3 billion Finnish scheme to support investments in strategic sectors and to help industrial companies to decarbonize their production processes. The scheme contributes to the achievement of the priorities of the European Commission for 2024-2029, based on the Political Guidelines, which call for investments in clean energy and technologies. The scheme was approved under the State aid Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework.

Under the scheme, the first measure will support investments in the production of energy from renewable sources (excluding electricity generation), electricity or thermal storage and storage of renewable hydrogen, biofuels, bioliquids, biogas, biomethane or biomass fuels (‘accelerated renewable energy and storage rollout measure’).

The second measure will support the decarbonisation of industrial production processes by helping companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their production processes by at least 40% and/or reduce their energy consumption by at least 20% (‘decarbonisation and energy efficiency measure’).

The third measure will support investments for the production of strategic equipment (namely batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, heat-pumps, electrolysers and carbon capture usage and storage), as well as key components designed and primarily used as direct input for the production of such equipment or related critical raw materials necessary for their production (‘measure for investments in strategic sectors’).

Under the scheme, the aid will take the form of a tax credit. The scheme will be open to all sectors, except credit institutions and other financial institutions.