Swedish marine energy developer Minesto has been awarded a €2.5 million grant from the European Commission’s SME Instrument programme.
The awarded funding will support the installation of Minesto’s technology in the Faroe Islands together with the utility company SEV.
“ This is great news for Minesto and our joint project with the utility customer SEV ”, said Dr Martin Edlund , CEO of Minesto. “ The EU community once again show trust and commitment to our technology and commercialisation roadmap .”
Minesto will receive a €2.5 million grant from EU’s SME Instrument Programme phase 2 for the development and operation of the company’s unique Deep Green technology in the Faroe Islands, where Minesto has engaged in a collaboration agreement with the main power generator and distributor SEV.
When matched with Minesto’s technology, the tidal current resource in the Faroe Islands will constitute a valuable share of the grid mix in a cost-effective and 100 percent renewable energy system by 2030. Following the first planned installations in Vestmannasund, the long-term ambition of the Minesto-SEV collaboration is a stepwise build-out up to 70MW installed capacity.
Minesto’s proposal for funding support from the SME Instrument phase 2 was selected for the maximum amount of funding in competition with 1,764 other applications from small and medium-sized enterprises in 35 countries.
SME Instrument is part of the European Commission’s European Innovation Council (EIC) and supports ground-breaking innovative ideas for products, services or processes that are ready to conquer global markets. It is divided in different phases with €50,000 grants available in phase 1, which Minesto was awarded in June 2018. In phase 2, grants in the range of €500,000–€2.5m are available for innovation development and demonstration purposes.