THE SIGNAL
On 19 October the European Commission selected 77 net-zero technology projects requesting €3.4 billion. Most coverage stopped there. The same press release reports that the call attracted 358 applications requesting €17.5 billion against an available budget of €2.9 billion, and the accompanying Q&A names two further groups that nobody wrote about. They describe three different commercial situations.
THE BIG SIGNAL
The results come from the Innovation Fund’s 2025 Net-Zero Technologies call, which opened in December 2025 and is financed by EU Emissions Trading System revenues. The 77 selected projects, requesting €3.4 billion between them, sit in 23 European Economic Area countries: 12 large-scale, 17 medium-scale, 20 small-scale, 12 clean-tech manufacturing and 16 pilots. The Commission estimates they could avoid the equivalent of around 290 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions over their first decade.
Two numbers from the same documents went unreported, and they matter more than the headline. The graphic below has all three groups.
The Commission has published the names, sectors, locations and coordinators of all 77, though not the individual grant amounts. Grant agreement results are due in the first quarter of 2027.
Three outcomes from the Innovation Fund’s 2025 Net-Zero Technologies call, with results announced on 19 October 2026. The STEP Seal quality label goes to the 84 and the 77 alike, so it is not what separates them. The 160 are non-recipients that remain eligible for Project Development Assistance from the European Investment Bank.
WHY IT MATTERS:
A grant selection is not a purchase order and not financial close. It is something more useful to a supplier: dated, public, third-party evidence that a named company has a capital programme it now has to specify. Between now and the first quarter of 2027, those 77 promoters must fix equipment, engineering, measurement and offtake.
The 84 are the more interesting list. Each has a project the Commission judged good enough to fund and no grant to build it with. A capital expenditure proposal is the wrong first conversation. The useful one is about phasing, a smaller first module, or a different financing route.
AND THE SCALE OF THE QUEUE
Oversubscription was heaviest at the top: large-scale grant requests exceeded that topic’s €1.2 billion budget by more than 7.5 times. European industrial projects are not short of specification. They are short of capital. The next Innovation Fund calls are planned for early December 2026.
YOUR NEXT MOVE
Open the Commission’s list of the 77 and look for a company you recognise.
Found one? Reply with its name. We can explore what it is building, who coordinates the project and where your solution might fit.
No familiar names? Tell me what your technology or service does and which European market you are targeting. I'll help you identify where the strongest commercial opportunities may lie — including beyond the published list.
One line is enough. Nothing confidential. I read every reply.
— André
Frankfurt
Signals · Markets · Capital