French National Research Agency (ANR) and France Energies Marines have teamed up and made available EUR 3 million in a new round of funding for marine renewable energy projects.
The supported projects must be collaborative, and approved by France Energies Marines, or represent a partnership between an SME and an approved public research body. Projects of up to 36 months duration will be funded, in any of a wide range of topics in the domain, from components and materials, through to networks and interconnection, modeling tools, prototypes, monitoring, and the evaluation of socio-economic and environmental impacts.
Each candidate can apply for a grant of between EUR 50,000 and EUR 2 million to fund up to 50% of the eligible costs. Applications must be submitted by 22 April, 2016. The results of the two-stage selection process will be announced in July.
This is the second call for marine renewables projects from the ANR. The first round invested EUR 10 million in ten initiatives when the fund was launched last year. The Omdyn , Induscol and Thymote projects included partners in the Pays de la Loire region. The grants were awarded to large-scale innovation projects likely to have a rapid impact on the growth of the sector.