29 January 2009 - The European Commission has earmarked €1.25bn ($1.63bn) for carbon capture and storage projects, €500m for offshore wind projects and €1.75bn for gas and electricity interconnection projects.

According to EuroPolitics, electricity interconnection projects get a total of €705m. This includes €100m for Estlink-2, between Estonia and Finland, and €175m for the interconnection between Sweden and the Baltic states as well as strengthening the Baltic grid.

The interconnection between France and Spain at Baixas-Santa Llogaia gets €150m, whilst there is €100m each for submarine interconnections between Sicily and continental Italy (Sorgente-Rizziconi) and between Ireland and Wales. Small isolated islands, Cyprus and Malta to be exact, must satisfy themselves with only €20m.

The offshore wind Programme also grabs €500m. The Commission justifies this sum by pointing to the ambitious target set by the wind industry of providing 12-14 per cent of EU electricity consumption by 2020.

More than one-fourth of this total should come from offshore applications. The Commission's proposed €500m programme focuses on support for large-scale offshore new demonstration projects at various locations in different member states and possibly up-scaling the existing ones.

The Commission says that support will be given to projects already at a "reasonable" state of development and the ability for the EU to bring "real added value". Selected projects should have cross-border significance, be situated in deeper waters, up to 50 metres, and be further from the shore (up to 100km) so as to benefit from higher wind resources.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) gets the lion's share, at €1.25bn. Five CCS projects would each get a tidy sum of €250m. The Commission notes that all the projects are at an "advanced" state of readiness.

The Commission claims the lucky five projects represent a mix of technologies, geological conditions as well as member states.

These projects are in Germany (Huerth and Jaenschwalde), the Netherlands (Eemshaven and Rotterdam), Poland (Belchatow), Spain (Compostella) and the UK (Kingsnorth, Longannet, Tilbury and Hatfield).