***UPDATE 9 June 2017: The EC now says 16 projects have reached FID across both calls (presentation 31 May 2017).***

The Commission informed the Climate Change Committee on 27 April that the following projects from the first call of NER300 (which closed in 2011) “have been officially withdrawn by Member States”:

They join a Belgian project known to have been formally withdrawn in October and an Irish project re-submitted to the second call. The awards made to the Belgian project and the three in the table above add up to 436 M EUR.

Zombie projects out there

A total of 23 projects were awarded in the first call including the five referred to above and two more (Pyrogrot, PTC50-Alvarado) withdrawn to make way for two substitute projects in the second call. But the EC says that Final Investment Decisions have been reached by only 14 projects across both calls. That means there are at least two projects that the EC has chosen not to identify that did not reach FID by the December 2016 deadline. NER300 rules state that even if they have not been “officially withdrawn” by the Member States behind them, those projects’ awards are revoked.

553 M EUR of unspent awards?

“Approximately € 553 million” was the EC’s estimate in September 2016 of the total awards from the first call that could go unused (article). This is half of the value of all the first-call awards.

New lease of life for Ajos BTL; EOS apparently on-course, too

One award that has been saved is Finland’s ‘Ajos BTL’ (award: 88.5 M EUR). A new owner, Kaidi took over the project and reached FID in the second half of 2016. Another project presumed to be in rude health because its backers will present it publicly on 8 June in Cyprus is “EOS GREEN ENERGY”, a concentrating solar power plant.