LIFE private-finance mobilisation for energy efficiency
Grants to develop and test financing schemes that attract private investment into energy efficiency, potentially alongside renewables and storage. The 2026 round is closed.
Αυτή η ευκαιρία είναι προς το παρόν διαθέσιμη στα Αγγλικά.
This LIFE Clean Energy Transition topic funds work to establish financing schemes that bring private capital into energy-efficiency projects. Renewables and storage can be included, but an efficiency component is required. Applicants can include financial institutions, energy-service operators, public authorities and other eligible organisations capable of delivering the scheme.
Possible models include loans or equity blended with grants, guarantees or risk-sharing, energy-performance services that provide investment finance, citizen investment and services matching projects with investors. Bill-based, tax-based and building-based financing attach the debt to the energy meter or building rather than to the household or company. Schemes can also target the secondary market for existing financing, including refinancing that replaces existing financing with new financing. The LIFE award supports the project developing and testing the financing scheme; it cannot be redistributed as grants or other financial support to third parties.
The Commission indicated that an EU contribution up to €1.5 million would normally fit the topic, while expressly allowing applications and awards for other amounts. This is a planning figure, not a fixed maximum grant.
The grant reimburses 95% of eligible project costs, using actual costs with specified unit-cost and flat-rate elements. Plan the remaining 5% of eligible costs from your own contribution, project income or other financial contributions. Eligible unpaid volunteer work can be budgeted using a fixed unit-cost allowance rather than actual expenditure. This allowance can increase reimbursement up to 100% of normal costs, meaning eligible costs other than volunteer allowances, and therefore reduce the cash contribution needed. The funding rate itself remains 95%. The grant cannot generate a profit.
Eligible categories include personnel, subcontracting, travel, services and equipment depreciation—the share of equipment cost allocated to its project use. Indirect costs use a 7% flat rate on eligible direct costs, excluding volunteer costs and any other exempt categories. Land purchases and financial support passed on to third parties are not eligible. Other free in-kind contributions cannot be declared as costs; eligible volunteer work follows the unit-cost rule above. Non-deductible VAT can qualify, except VAT paid by public bodies acting as public authorities. Subcontracting above 30% of total eligible costs must be justified. A separate project website is eligible only when justified by the project objectives.
Eligibility
A single applicant can apply, and partners may all be from one eligible country. The financing scheme must be established in at least one eligible country, with credible access to capital and a pipeline of prospective investments.
The scheme must be operational by project completion and pilot-tested during the project. The underlying investments can be implemented later. Proposals covering only renewable energy, a renewable-fuel switch or storage without energy efficiency are out of scope.
Define the target regions and sectors, demonstrate the scheme’s business case and financial viability, and explain what is additional or innovative compared with current practice. Cover both the supply of finance and demand from a suitable investment pipeline; the project does not have to originate that pipeline itself. Plan how the scheme can be replicated or expanded beyond its first region.
Show support from target stakeholders and how they will remain involved. Where public funding forms part of the financing scheme, demonstrate support from the relevant managing authorities. Explain links to existing programmes and technical assistance, including renovation one-stop shops and project-development assistance. Coordinate with national hubs of the European Energy Efficiency Financing Coalition where relevant.
Applicants are public or private legal entities established in an EU country, including its overseas countries and territories, or in Iceland, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia or Ukraine. The coordinator must be established in an eligible country. Serbia is listed as negotiating association. Its entities may apply, but grant signature requires an association agreement in force by the end of selection and covering this call.
Sole traders can qualify even without separate legal personality. Ordinary individual applicants cannot. International organisations are eligible without the country-location restriction. Entities from other countries may exceptionally receive funding if the granting authority considers their participation essential; this does not waive the coordinator’s eligible-country requirement. Bodies without legal personality may exceptionally participate through representatives able to undertake obligations and provide equivalent protection of EU funds. EU bodies are excluded except the Commission’s Joint Research Centre. If an association’s members carry out project work, they must join as beneficiaries or affiliated entities for their costs to qualify.
Activities must take place in eligible countries. Activities elsewhere require a demonstrated need to achieve EU environmental and climate objectives and make interventions within eligible countries effective.
These geographic exceptions remain subject to the LIFE country list’s territorial restrictions for Israeli entities. Israeli companies, non-profits, regional/local authorities and other covered legal persons must have their registered physical address within Israel’s pre-1967 borders. National public authorities are exempt from that establishment rule, but must provide a communication address within those borders. Natural persons are exempt from these territorial rules; the call’s separate restriction to eligible sole traders still applies.
Grant-funded activities of covered Israeli legal entities, including national public authorities, must not take place, even partly, in the Golan Heights, Gaza Strip or West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The activity restriction has an exception for work benefiting protected persons under international humanitarian law in those territories and/or promoting the Middle East peace process in line with EU policy. It does not exclude an Israeli entity merely because it conducts unrelated activities there. Entities excluded under these rules cannot participate in any capacity under the LIFE country list. Meeting these territorial rules does not itself establish eligibility for LIFE’s exceptional third-country funding.
Applicants need sufficient finances, expertise and staff to deliver their work and contribution. EU exclusion decisions, insolvency, tax or social-security breaches, serious misconduct, fraud and material failures on earlier EU contracts or grants can prevent funding. EU sanctions and conditionality restrictions apply; Hungarian public-interest trusts established under Act IX of 2021 and entities they maintain cannot take funded roles.
The same action normally cannot receive another EU-budget grant, and the same cost cannot be declared twice. An EU operating grant can coexist only when this project is outside its work programme and costs are separately accounted for. Associated partners participate at their own expense. Completed projects cannot receive support; already-started work is assessed case by case, and pre-start-date costs are not reimbursed.
How to apply
- Κατάσταση
- κλειστό
- Ανοίγει
- Κλείνει
- Όροι του κύκλου αιτήσεων
- Closed 2026 single-stage round; these terms do not establish a later intake.
The 2026 round closed on 16 September 2026 at 17:00 Brussels time. Use the official topic page to check published call updates and the Funding & Tenders Portal for any subsequent application opportunity.
For the documented round, participants needed EU Login accounts and registration to obtain a Participant Identification Code (PIC). Submit through the topic’s portal system using its current templates: Part A for participants and budget, Part B for the technical proposal (maximum 65 pages), Part C for project and impact data, plus the mandatory detailed budget and participant-information spreadsheets. Letters of support are optional. Applications may use any EU official language, but the abstract must be in English; English is recommended throughout.
Proposals undergo eligibility and capacity checks, expert assessment and ranking. An invitation to prepare a grant agreement is not a funding commitment. The agreement fixes the start, duration, budget and reporting obligations; multi-beneficiary teams also need a consortium agreement. Projects normally start after signature; a justified retrospective start can never precede proposal submission.
The normal initial advance is 30% of the maximum grant, payable 30 days after the agreement enters into force or a required guarantee is supplied, whichever is later. Further advances depend on reports; these topics have no interim cost-reimbursement payments. Payments go to the coordinator, with a final balance based on eligible expenditure. Excess advances must be repaid, and a guarantee or lower advance may be required.
Quantify results and impacts at project completion and five years afterwards. Use the topic-specific indicators where relevant to the proposed activities; applicants are not expected to address every listed topic indicator. These include investment projects and volumes processed during the pilot and expected over the next five years, investor and project-developer participation, sustainable-energy investment and targeted primary-energy savings. Justify the five-year investment pipeline using detailed market analysis and provide indicators specific to your activities. Also quantify the common programme impacts: primary and final energy savings, renewable generation and emissions reductions.