The European Commission (EC) has approved a total budget of over €1 billion measures by the Slovak government to help companies subject to the EU Emission Trading System (ETS), including energy-intensive industries, decarbonize their production processes and improve their energy efficiency. The measures will contribute to the achievement of the European Green Deal targets, while helping reduce dependence on imported Russian fossil fuels and fast-forward the green transition.
The measures aim to help certain industries, including steel, to reduce carbon emissions in their production processes as well as to implement energy efficiency measures in industrial installations.
The projects that will benefit from the aid will be selected based through an open competitive bidding process and will be ranked on the basis of two criteria: the lowest amount of aid requested per ton of carbon emissions avoided, and the highest contribution to the achievement of the overall carbon emission reduction objective of the schemes. Projects will be selected following five tenders in total, the first of which is scheduled for 2022 and the last of which is planned for 2028.
The measures are expected to avoid the release of 5.233 million tons of carbon annually. This represents more than 12 percent of Slovakia’s 2030 target.