Call: Methane cracking to usable hydrogen and carbon

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Programme

Horizon Europe - Cluster 5 - Destination 2: Cross-sectoral solutions for the climate transition

Acronym

HE-CL5-D2

Type of Fund

Direct Management

Description of programme
"Horizon Europe - Cluster 5 - Destination 2: Cross-sectoral solutions for the climate transition"

This Destination covers thematic areas which are cross-cutting by nature and can provide key solutions for climate, energy and mobility applications. In line with the scope of cluster 5 such areas are batteries, hydrogen, communities and cities, early-stage breakthrough technologies as well as citizen engagement. Although these areas are very distinct in terms of challenges, stakeholder communities and expected impacts, they have their cross-cutting nature as a unifying feature and are therefore grouped together under this Destination.

This Destination contributes to the following Strategic Plan’s Key Strategic Orientations (KSO):

C: Making Europe the first digitally enabled circular, climate-neutral and sustainable economy through the transformation of its mobility, energy, construction and production systems;
A: Promoting an open strategic autonomy[[‘Open strategic autonomy’ refers to the term ‘strategic autonomy while preserving an open economy’, as reflected in the conclusions of the European Council 1 – 2 October 2020.]] by leading the development of key digital, enabling and emerging technologies, sectors and value chains to accelerate and steer the digital and green transitions through human-centred technologies and innovations;
D: Creating a more resilient, inclusive and democratic European society, prepared and responsive to threats and disasters, addressing inequalities and providing high-quality health care, and empowering all citizens to act in the green and digital transitions.

It covers the following impact areas:

Industrial leadership in key and emerging technologies that work for people
Affordable and clean energy
Smart and sustainable transport

The expected impact, in line with the Strategic Plan, is to contribute to the “Clean and sustainable transition of the energy and transport sectors towards climate neutrality facilitated by innovative cross-cutting solutions”, notably through:

Nurturing a world-class European research and innovation eco-system on batteries along the value chain based on sustainable pathways. It includes improvement of technological performance to increase application user attractiveness (in particular in terms of safety, cost, user convenience, fast charging and environmental footprint), in parallel supporting the creation of a competitive, circular, and sustainable European battery manufacturing value chain (more detailed information below).
Increased efficiency of Europe’s cities’ and communities’ energy, resource use and mobility patterns and cities’ and communities’ overall sustainability, thereby improving their climate-resilience and attractiveness to businesses and citizens in a holistic fashion. This also includes improved air and water quality, resilience of energy supply, intelligent mobility services and logistics, liveability and accessibility of cities, public health, comfortable, affordable zero emissions housing as well as the exploitation of relevant European technologies and knowledge (more detailed information below).
Facilitating the transformation to a climate neutral society, in line with the EU’s 2050 climate targets, through more effectively engaging and empowering citizens to participate in the transition, from planning to decision-making and implementation (more detailed information below).
Nurturing the development of emerging technologies with high potential to enable zero-greenhouse gas and negative emissions in energy and transport (more detailed information below).

A competitive and sustainable European battery value chain

Batteries will enable the rollout of zero-emission mobility and renewable energy storage, contributing to the European Green Deal and supporting the UN SDGs by creating a vibrant, responsible and sustainable market. Besides climate neutrality, batteries also contribute to other UN SDGs directly and indirectly such as enabling of decentralized and off-grid energy solutions.

The strategic pathway is, on the one hand, for Europe to rapidly regain technological competitiveness in order to capture a significant market share of the new and fast growing rechargeable battery market, and, on the other hand, to invest in longer term research on future battery technologies to establish Europe's long term technological leadership and industrial competitiveness

The Partnership “Towards a competitive European industrial battery value chain for stationary applications and e-mobility”, to which all battery-related topics under this Destination will contribute, aims to establish world-leading sustainable and circular European battery value chain to drive transformation towards a carbon-neutral society.

The main impacts to be generated by topics targeting the battery value chain under this Destination are:

Increased global competitiveness of the European battery ecosystem through generated knowledge and leading-edge technologies in battery materials, cell design, manufacturing and recycling;
Accelerated growth of innovative, competitive and sustainable battery manufacturing industry in Europe;
Accelerated roll out of electrified mobility through increased attractiveness for citizens and businesses, offering lower price, better performance and safety, reliable operation of e-vehicles. Increased grid flexibility, increased share of renewables integration and facilitated self-consumption and participation in energy markets by citizens and businesses;
Increased overall sustainability and improved Life Cycle Assessment of each segment of the battery value chain. Developed and established innovative recycling network and technologies and in line with the March 2020 European Circular Economy Action Plan, accelerated roll-out of circular designs and holistic circular approach for funded innovations;
Increased exploitation and reliability of batteries though demonstration of innovative use cases of battery integration in stationary energy storage and vehicles/vessels/aircrafts (in collaboration with other partnerships).

Communities and cities

This work programme contains only a few activities. The bulk of activities related to communities and cities will be introduced during 2021 as an update to the Horizon Europe work programme 2021, once the preparatory phase of the Horizon Europe Missions has been concluded.

Emerging breakthrough technologies and climate solutions

Although the contribution of a wide range of technologies to reach climate neutrality is already foreseeable, EU R&I programming should also leave room for emerging and break-through technologies with a high potential to achieve climate neutrality. These technologies can play a significant role in reaching the EU’s goal to become climate neutral by 2050.

Relevant topics supported under this Destination do not duplicate activities supported under Pillars I or III, but focus on emerging technologies that can enable the climate transition and follows at the same time a technology-neutral bottom up approach and the support of key technologies that are expected to support achieving climate neutrality. Research in this area is mostly technological in nature but should also where relevant be accompanied by assessments of environmental impact, social and economic impacts, and possible regulatory needs as well as activities to support the creation of value chains and to build up new ecosystems of stakeholders working on breakthrough technologies.

The main expected impacts to be generated by topics targeting breakthrough technologies and climate solutions under this Destination are:

Emergence of unanticipated technologies enabling emerging zero-greenhouse gas and negative emissions in energy and transport;
Development of high-risk/high return technologies to enable a transition to a net greenhouse gas neutral European economy;

Citizens and stakeholder engagement

The transition to climate-neutral economies and societies by 2050 is the defining challenge of this century. The challenge is not just technical: it calls for wide-ranging societal transformations and the adaptation of lifestyles and behaviours. Engaging citizens and stakeholders is therefore critical for the success of the European Green Deal, as is making greater recourse to the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), alongside the Scientific, Technical, Engineering and Mathematical (STEM) disciplines.

The topics under this section do not stand alone but aim to complement and support the broader integration (“mainstreaming”) of citizen and stakeholder engagement as well as the social sciences and humanities (SSH) across the whole Horizon Europe programme map and particularly Cluster 5.

The main expected impacts to be generated by topics targeting citizen and stakeholder engagement under this Destination are:

A better understanding of the societal implications of the climate transition, including its distributional repercussions;
More effective policy interventions, co-created with target constituencies and building on high-quality policy advice;
Greater societal support for transition policies and programs, based on greater and more consequential involvement of those most affected.

Link

Link to Programme

Call

Methane cracking to usable hydrogen and carbon

Description of call
"Methane cracking to usable hydrogen and carbon"

Expected Outcome

Project results are expected to contribute to at least one of the following expected outcomes:

Replacement of the unabated use of natural gas by climate-neutral (or negative, in case of cracking of biogenic methane) hydrogen.
Reduction of emissions by hard to decarbonise sectors, also considering the use of eventual by-products.
Faster reduction of GHG emissions by economies heavily relying on natural gas export or use (provided they reduce their upstream emissions).
Production of economically usable by-product solid carbon (in tires, batteries, etc.).

Scope:

A potential breakthrough technology is represented by the development of processes allowing the use of available fossil and renewable methane to economically generate hydrogen without any release of CO2 or other GHGs (as in current processes). To be advantageous on a life cycle basis, however, this requires a higher efficiency than in current processes and that the used natural or renewable gas is supplied by a chain with low upstream leakage.

This requires the development of innovative methodologies to deliver high performance hydrogen production from methane by directly splitting the molecule in its components (hydrogen and solid carbon). Proposals are expected to demonstrate significant advances with respect to already achieved results in Europe and outside, delivering a minimum of 50% efficiency (i.e. energy from hydrogen recovery vs energy from original methane, for instance by reducing reaction temperatures and improving catalysts), and demonstrating the potential to achieve mass production and a competitive hydrogen cost and an improved climate performance with respect to current methane based, CO2 releasing hydrogen production methods including CCS. Due consideration should be given to the management of impurities in the source stream, and to the development of the economic potential of the carbon particles delivered by the specific technology which could have a valuable end-use (e.g. synthetic graphite or carbon black) or the development of side-streams of other carbon-rich chemical compounds (excluding uses which would re-release the carbon as CO2). Each project will dedicate part of its work programme to technology assessment to consider environmental, resource and economic aspects of the deployment of the technology).

Link

Link to Call

Thematic Focus

Research & Innovation, Technology Transfer & Exchange, Climate, Climate Change, Environment & Biodiversity, Clustering, Development Cooperation, Economic Cooperation, Circular Economy, Sustainability, Natural Resources, Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, Green Technologies & Green Deal, Mobility & Transport/Traffic , Health, Social Affairs, Sports

Funding area

EU Member States
Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs)

Origin of Applicant

EU Member States
Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs)

Eligible applicants

Education and Training Centres, Federal State / Region / City / Municipality / Local Authority, Research Institution, Lobby Group / Professional Association / Trade Union, International Organization, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, SMEs (between 10 and 249 employees), Microenterprises (fewer than 10 employees), NGO / NPO, Public Services, National Government, Other, Start Up Company, University, Enterprise (more than 250 employees or not defined), Association

Applicant details

eligible non-EU countries:

countries associated to Horizon Europe

At the date of the publication of the work programme, there are no countries associated to Horizon Europe. Considering the Union’s interest to retain, in principle, relations with the countries associated to Horizon 2020, most third countries associated to Horizon 2020 are expected to be associated to Horizon Europe with an intention to secure uninterrupted continuity between Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe. In addition, other third countries can also become associated to Horizon Europe during the programme. For the purposes of the eligibility conditions, applicants established in Horizon 2020 Associated Countries or in other third countries negotiating association to Horizon Europe will be treated as entities established in an Associated Country, if the Horizon Europe association agreement with the third country concerned applies at the time of signature of the grant agreement.

low-and middle-income countries

Legal entities which are established in countries not listed above will be eligible for funding if provided for in the specific call conditions, or if their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the granting authority.

Specific cases:

Affiliated entities - Affiliated entities are eligible for funding if they are established in one of the countries listed above.
EU bodies - Legal entities created under EU law may also be eligible to receive funding, unless their basic act states otherwise.
International organisations - International European research organisations are eligible to receive funding. Unless their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the granting authority, other international organisations are not eligible to receive funding. International organisations with headquarters in a Member State or Associated Country are eligible to receive funding for ‘Training and mobility’actions and when provided for in the specific call conditions.

Project Partner

Yes

Project Partner Details

Unless otherwise provided for in the specific call conditions , legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes:

at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State;and
at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.

Further info

Proposal page limits and layout:

The application form will have two parts:

Part A to be filled in directly online (administrative information, summarised budget, call-specific questions, etc.)
Part B to be downloaded from the Portal submission system, completed and re-uploaded as a PDF in the system

Page limit - Part B: 45 pages

Type of Funding

Grants

Financial details

Expected EU contribution per project	The Commission estimates that an EU contribution of between EUR 2.00 and 3.00 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of a proposal requesting different amounts.
Indicative budget	The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 15.00 million.
Typ of Action	Research and Innovation Actions (RIA)
Funding rate	100%

To ensure a balanced portfolio, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking but at least also to those that are the highest ranked within set topics, provided that the applications attain all thresholds.

The budget is shared among topics HORIZON-CL5-2021-D2-01-09, HORIZON-CL5-2021-D2-01-10 and HORIZON-CL5-2021-D2-01-11.

This topic focusses on technological concepts at low TRLs (TRL 3 or lower). Activities are expected to achieve TRL 5 by the end of the project.

Submission

Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System. Paper submissions are NOTpossible.