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This round is closed. The next round and similar open calls are listed below. Synced from the EU Funding & Tenders Portal on 9 November 2026.
This call is closed. These open or upcoming calls fund the closest work.
Based on projects the EU funded on the same subject in this programme.
ENPOWEREnergy Activated Citizens and Data-Driven Energy-Secure Communities for a Consumer-Centric Energy System
HORIZON-CL5-2022-D3-01-08 · 2023 · Official record ↗
COMMUNITASBound to accelerate the roll-out and expansion of Energy Communities and empower consumers as fully-fledged energy market players
HORIZON-CL5-2022-D3-01-08 · 2023 · Official record ↗
CAPTUSDemonstrating energy intensive industry-integrated solutions to produce liquid renewable energy carriers from CAPTUred carbon emissionS
HORIZON-CL5-2022-D3-02-05 · 2023 · Official record ↗
SETplan 2025The 19th Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan Conference: Strategic energy technologies for a competitive, secure and sustainable Europe.
HORIZON-CL5-2025-SETPLAN-IBA · 2025 · Official record ↗
ESTIRPEEfficient Sustainable Tools and Innovations for the EneRgy Communities EmPowerment through Renewable Energies
HORIZON-CL5-2026-02-D3-20 · 2027 · Official record ↗
CELINECross-sectorial integrated digital services Enabling energy Localized InnovatioN and community Empowerment
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-03-04 · 2024 · Official record ↗
CRETE VALLEYCrete Renewable Energy Valley
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-01-01 · 2023 · Official record ↗
FORESTFUTURE OCEAN RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEM TECHNOLOGIES (FOREST)
HORIZON-CL5-2024-D3-02-04 · 2025 · Official record ↗
Each one links to its EU funding record and the partners it works with: a starting list for building a consortium.
Specific Challenge:
Individual energy communities encounter different challenges, such as developing a successful governance structure that is sufficiently inclusive and involves different types of actors, carrying out an effective business model and embedding activities within the structure and management of the European Commission to territorial regional and/or local plans (e.g., Just Transition Plans, Climate City Contracts, etc.).
By rewarding Energy Communities’ innovative governance structure and management of a RET, the prize aims to inspire other Energy Communities to improve their operations and implementation activities and to foster innovativeness in the compliance of climate goals. In addition, this prize will also serve as inspiration and example to other types of communities to become an energy one, accelerating the pace for the ones that are already being formed/developed.
The prize will showcase the best practices from the awarded communities to other ones experiencing similar challenges and issues, portraying a (replicable) framework on how to address these issues successfully. In this way, communities will feel incentivised to apply these practices, to improve their performance, management, etc., and so they can participate in future (similar) prize calls.
Since Energy Communities have encountered bottlenecks in terms of management, governance structure, provision of other services, etc., this prize will aid to portray the successful ones on how to develop/carry out a fruitful business model that includes and promotes different type of services, while including and improving social aspects within the community.
While showcasing governance innovativeness within the common barriers encountered to operate, the awarded communities will present a clear example that can serve as a replicable framework for other communities on how to overcome challenges and barriers, and address encountered common bottlenecks.
Furthermore, the prize is expected to contribute to the broader goals of the EU Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by demonstrating how energy communities can play a pivotal role in achieving climate neutrality at the city level. By embedding their activities within existing strategic and systematic approaches towards climate neutrality, such as the Climate City Contracts, these communities will help cities transition to more sustainable and resilient urban environments.
The total money allocated to this prize is €1 million (EUR 1.000.000) to be awarded up to 10 winners as follows:
1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout
Described in the Rules of Contest for this prize.
2. Eligible Countries
Described in the Rules of Contest for this prize.
3. Other Eligible Conditions
Described in the Rules of Contest for this prize.
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion
Described in the Rules of Contest for this prize.
5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds
Described in the Rules of Contest for this prize.
5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes
Described in the Rules of Contest for this prize.
5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement
Described in the Rules of Contest for this prize.
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants
Described in the Rules of Contest for this prize.
Described in the Rules of Contest for this prize.
Call documents:
Rules of Contest
Application form templates — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System
Additional documents:
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 8. Climate, Energy and Mobility
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 14. General Annexes
HE Programme Guide
HE Framework Programme 2021/695
HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764
EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual 
Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions 
Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement
Prize Governance Innovations in Energy Communities website
Applicants asked the EU 6 questions about this call and the EU published the answers. They clarify the call documents but do not replace them.
No, the composition of your energy community in terms of member or shareholder types does not in itself affect eligibility, provided that the entity complies with all conditions of the call, including the applicable EU definitions of a “renewable energy community” as defined in Article 2(16) of Directive (EU) 2018/2001 (as amended by Directive (EU) 2023/2413), or a “citizen energy community” as defined in Article 2(11) of Directive (EU) 2019/944.
These definitions include, among others, requirements related to membership, control, participation, and purpose. As such, having only one type of member (e.g. only natural persons, or only SMEs) does not automatically make an application ineligible, as long as the entity fully complies with the relevant legal definition and all eligibility conditions set out in the Rules of Contest.
Applicants are encouraged to carefully verify that their energy community meets all applicable criteria under the relevant Directives.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 27 May 2026
No. The organization forming the energy community must apply to this prize using a dedicated Participant Identification Code (PIC).
Please find here guidance to register your organization: ec.europa.eu
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 27 May 2026
Applicants are expected to describe and explain any innovative forms of social governance of their energy community within the application form itself, as the jury will evaluate and score your proposal against the award criteria only based on the information contained in your application.
Applications must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents, as outlined in the Rules of Contest:
• Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the applicant organisations (to be filled in directly online)
• Application Form Part B — contains the technical description of the application (template to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed, assembled and re-uploaded)
• Mandatory annexes and supporting documents (templates to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed, assembled and re-uploaded), notably:
o Energy community self-assessment declaration
o Declaration of Honour – Signing Authority for EU Energy Community, signed by at least one Board Member.
Applicants may be requested to provide additional supporting evidence at a later stage, in particular about the establishment of their energy community and its membership number.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 2 Jun 2026
No. As stated in the Important Notice section of the Application form template (page 2), “Please do NOT delete any content in the template application form (including instructions).”
You may however remove the following pages, as they are not part of the technical description (Part B): the cover page (page 1), the Important Notice (page 2), the Administrative Forms (Part A) (page 3), and the Annexes (page 8).
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 27 Apr 2026
The ten awardees of the Prize for governance innovation in energy communities will be announced during an award ceremony. The award ceremony is currently expected to take place in Brussels at the upcoming R&I days on 10-11 November 2026. Winners will be invited in due course by the European Commission to make their travel arrangements in order to attend the award ceremony.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 21 Sept 2026
No. The type of renewable technology owned or operated by the energy community does not in itself determine the evaluation of the application. This prize focuses on governance innovations in energy communities. Applications will therefore be evaluated against the award criteria set out in Section 9 of the Rules of Contest, namely: inclusivity within the governance structure, internal governance processes, regional/local transition, and other innovative approaches.
Applicants are therefore expected to appropriately explain how their energy community addresses those criteria.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 27 May 2026
Confirm the current call documents and submission conditions with the funding authority.
View on EU portal ↗Source: EU Funding & Tenders Portal · synced 2026-11-09
A free account keeps your shortlist and sends deadline reminders. The EUACC connector brings this call, its FAQs, past winners and similar calls into Claude or ChatGPT, so you can check fit and draft with sources.