a.

the use of a competitive process based on transparent criteria to contract volumes for voluntary demand reduction;

b.

the absence of any formal restrictions to cross-border trade or flows;

c.

the limitation of the incentives concerned to demand reductions in the future that go beyond those that the beneficiary would have undertaken regardless of the measure;

d.

an immediate reduction in aggregate final gas demand in the Member State concerned while avoiding a mere shift in demand for natural gas.

a.

the use of a competitive process based on transparent criteria to minimise the aid;

b.

the absence of any restrictions to cross-border trade or flows;

c.

the presence of safeguards to avoid overcompensation;

d.

the compliance with the obligations and conditions for filling and incentivizing gas storage set out in Article 6a to Article 6d of Regulation (EU) 2017/1938 (**), in particular the conditions for support measures set out in Article 6b, paragraphs (2) and (3).

a.

The aid is granted no later than 31 December 2022; (*)

b.

The aid may be granted in the form of direct grants, tax (**) and payment advantages or other forms such as repayable advances, guarantees (***), loans (****) and equity provided the total nominal value of such measures does not exceed the applicable aid intensity and aid ceilings. All figures used must be gross, that is, before any deduction of tax or other charge;

c.

Aid granted in the form of repayable advances, guarantees, loans or other repayable instruments may be converted into other forms of aid such as grants, provided the conversion takes place by 30 June 2023 at the latest;

d.

The aid is granted on the basis of a scheme with an estimated budget. Member States may limit the aid to activities that support specific economic sectors of particular importance to the economy or to the security and resilience of the internal market. However, such limits need to be designed broadly and not lead to an artificial limitation of potential beneficiaries;

e.

For the purposes of this section, eligible costs are calculated based on the increase in natural gas and electricity costs linked to the Russian aggression against Ukraine. The maximum eligible cost is the product of the number of units of natural gas and electricity procured by the beneficiary (*****) from external suppliers as a final consumer (******) between 1 February 2022 and 31 December 2022 at the latest (“eligible period”) and increase in the price that the beneficiary pays per unit consumed (measured for example in EUR/MWh), which must be calculated as the difference between the unit price paid by the beneficiary in a given month in the eligible period and twice (200 %) the unit price paid by the beneficiary on average in the reference period from 1 January 2021 until 31 December 2021 (*******). As from 1 September 2022, the quantity of natural gas and electricity used to calculate the eligible costs must not exceed 70 % of the beneficiary’s consumption for the same period in 2021;

f.

The overall aid per beneficiary does not exceed 30 % of the eligible costs;

g.

The overall aid per undertaking does not exceed EUR 2 million at any given point in time;

h.

The granting authority may make an advance payment to the beneficiary when the aid is granted before the eligible costs have been incurred. When doing so, the granting authority may rely on estimations of the eligible cost provided that the aid ceilings in point 52(f) and (g) are respected. The granting authority is required to verify the relevant ceilings ex-post on the basis of actual cost incurred and to claw back any aid payment that exceed those ceilings no later than six months after the eligible period has ended;

i.

Aid granted under this point 52 may be cumulated with aid granted under section 2.1, provided that a total amount of EUR 2 million is not exceeded.

a.

The beneficiary is eligible, if it is an “energy-intensive business” within the meaning of the first limb of Article 17(1)(a) of Directive 2003/96/EC (*), i.e. where the purchases of energy products (including energy products other than natural gas and electricity) amount to at least 3.0 % of the production value (**); upon appropriate justification to be provided by the Member State to the Commission for its assessment, the production value may be replaced by turnover;

b.

The beneficiary is eligible if it incurs operating losses (***), whereby the increase in the eligible cost as defined in point 52(e) must amount to at least 50 % of the operating loss in the same period;

c.

The overall aid does not exceed 50 % of the eligible costs and amounts to a maximum of 80 % of the operating losses of the beneficiary;

d.

The overall aid does not exceed EUR 25 million per undertaking at any given point in time;

e.

For an energy-intensive beneficiary active in one or more sectors or sub-sectors listed in Annex I (****), the overall aid may be increased to a maximum of 70 % of the eligible costs and may amount to a maximum of 80 % of the operating losses incurred by the beneficiary. The overall aid may not exceed EUR 50 million per undertaking at any given point in time;

f.

Aid under point 53 maybe cumulated with aid under section 2.1, provided that the ceilings specified under points 53(d) or 53(e), whichever applies, are not exceeded.

a.

the aid is granted for one of the following:

b.

support schemes may be limited to one or several technologies under point (a) but must not include any artificial limitation or discrimination, (including in the award of licences, permits or concessions when they are required) such as limitations by size of projects, location or regional aspects or very specific (sub)types of technologies within one of the technologies referred in point (a);

c.

the aid is granted in the form of direct grants, repayable advances, loans, guarantees or tax advantages;

d.

the aid is granted on the basis of a scheme with an estimated volume and budget;

e.

the aid is granted by 30 June 2023 at the latest and the installations must be completed and be in operation within 24 months after the date of granting or 30 months after the date of granting for aid to offshore wind, renewable hydrogen installations. Where this deadline is not met, 5 % of the amount of aid awarded must be reimbursed or reduced per month after the first 3 months of delay, increasing to 10 % per month of delay after the sixth month, unless the delay is due to factors outside the control of the aid beneficiary, and could not reasonably have been foreseen (***);

f.

where the aid is granted in the form of contracts for ongoing aid payments, those contracts must not have a duration longer than 15 years after the aided installation starts operations;

g.

the aid is granted in a competitive bidding process that is open, clear, transparent and non-discriminatory, based on objective criteria that are defined ex ante and that minimise the risk of strategic bidding. At least 70 % in the total selection criteria used for ranking bids must be defined in terms of aid per unit of environmental protection (****) or aid per unit of energy;

h.

a competitive bidding process is not mandatory when aid is granted in the form of tax advantages, insofar as it is granted in the same way for all eligible undertakings operating in the same sector of economic activity that are in the same or similar factual situation in respect of the aims or objectives of the aid measure. Furthermore, a competitive bidding process is not mandatory when the aid granted per undertaking per project does not exceed EUR 20 million and the aid beneficiaries are small projects defined as follows:

Where aid for small projects is not granted in a competitive bidding process, the aid intensity shall not exceed 45 % of the total investment cost. The aid intensity may be increased by 20 percentage points for aid granted to small undertakings and by 10 percentage points for aid granted to medium-sized undertakings.

i.

the volumes of capacity or production tendered must be set to ensure that the bidding process is effectively competitive. The Member State must prove the plausibility that the volume tendered will match the potential offer of projects. This may be done with reference to past auctions, to technology targets in the National Energy and Climate Plan (*****), or by introducing a safeguard mechanism in case of risk of undersubscribed tenders. In case of repeated undersubscription of competitive bidding processes, the Member State must introduce remedies for any future schemes that it notifies to the Commission for the same technology;

j.

the aid must be designed to preserve efficient operating incentives and price signals. Furthermore, aid must be designed in a way that allows to addressing windfall profits, including in times of extremely high electricity or gas prices, such as, by putting in place a claw-back mechanism defined ex-ante or by granting the aid in the form of two-way contracts for differences (******);

k.

where the aid is granted for the production of renewable hydrogen, the Member State must ensure that the hydrogen is produced from renewable energy sources in accordance with the methodologies set out for renewable liquid and gaseous transport fuels of non-biological origin in Directive (EU) 2018/2001;

l.

aid under this measure must not be combined with other aid for the same eligible costs;

m.

aid may be granted for investments for which works started as of 20 July 2022; for projects started before 20 July 2022, aid may be granted if it is necessary to significantly accelerate or widen the scope of the investment. In such cases, only the additional costs in relation to the acceleration efforts or the widened scope are eligible for aid;

n.

the aid must induce the beneficiary to undertake an investment, which it would not undertake, or would carry out in a restricted or different manner, without the aid. The Commission considers that, given the exceptional economic challenges that undertakings face due to the current crisis, it is generally the case that in the absence of the aid, beneficiaries would continue their activities without changes, provided that continuing their activities without changes does not entail a breach of Union law;

o.

the Member State must ensure compliance with the ‘do not significant harm’ principle.

a.

the aid is granted on the basis of a scheme with an estimated budget;

b.

the maximum individual aid amount that may be granted per undertaking must, in principle, not to exceed 10 % of the total budget available for such a scheme. With appropriate justification provided by the Member State to the Commission, the Commission may accept schemes that provide for the granting of individual aid amounts exceeding 10 % of the total budget available for the scheme;

c.

the aid is granted in the form of direct grants, repayable advances, loans, guarantees or tax advantages;

d.

the investment must enable the beneficiary to do one or both of the following:

e.

regarding investments relating to activities covered by the Emission Trading System (ETS), the aid leads to a reduction in the beneficiary installation’s greenhouse gas emissions going below the relevant benchmarks for free allocation set out in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/447 (***);

f.

the aid must not be used to finance an increase of the overall production capacity of the beneficiary;

g.

where the aid is granted for an industrial decarbonisation investment involving the use of renewable hydrogen, the Member State must ensure that the hydrogen used is produced from renewable energy sources in accordance with the methodologies set out for renewable liquid and gaseous transport fuels of non-biological origin in Directive (EU) 2018/2001;

h.

aid can also be granted for an industrial decarbonisation investment involving the use of hydrogen produced from electricity in one of the following instances:

(i)

the hydrogen is produced only in hours in which the marginal generation unit in the bidding zone where the electrolyser is located in the imbalance settlement periods when the electricity is consumed is a fossil-free electricity generation plant. Hydrogen produced in hours in which the marginal generation unit in the bidding zone where the electrolyser is located in the imbalance settlement periods when the electricity is consumed is a renewable electricity generation plant cannot be counted a second time under this section.

(ii)

alternatively, hydrogen is produced from electricity taken from the grid and the electrolyser is producing hydrogen for a number of full load hours equal or lower than the number of hours in which the marginal price of electricity in the bidding zone was set by installations producing fossil-free electricity other than renewable;

(iii)

alternatively, the Member State must ensure that the used electricity-based hydrogen achieves life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions savings of at least 70 % relative to a fossil fuel comparator of 94g CO2eq/MJ (2.256 tCO2eq/tH2) and that it originates from fossil-free sources. The method to compute the greenhouse gas emissions allocated to the electricity should not lead to an increased consumption of fossil fuel in line with REPowerEU objectives. Only the share of the produced hydrogen corresponding to the average share of electricity from fossil-free electricity generation plants other than renewable electricity generation plants, in the country of production, as measured two years before the year in question, can be used for the purpose of this section.

i.

the aid is granted by 30 June 2023 and is subject to the condition that the installation or equipment to be financed by the investment must be completed and be in full operation within 24 months after the date of granting or within 30 months after the date of granting for investments involving the use of renewable and hydrogen fulfilling the conditions of point (h). Where the deadline for completion and entry into operation is not met, 5 % of the amount of aid awarded must be reimbursed or reduced per month after the first three months of delay, increasing to 10 % per month of delay after the sixth month, unless the delay is due to factors outside the control of the aid beneficiary, and could not reasonably have been foreseen (****). Where the deadline for completion and entry into operation is respected, aid in the form of repayable advances may be transformed into grants; if not, the repayable advance is to be reimbursed in equal annual instalments within five years after the date of granting the aid;

j.

aid may be granted for investments for which works started as of 20 July 2022; for projects started before 20 July 2022, aid may be granted if it is necessary to significantly accelerate or widen the scope of the investment. In such cases, only the additional costs in relation to the acceleration efforts or the widened scope are eligible for aid;

k.

the aid must not be granted for merely complying with applicable Union standards (*****);

l.

the aid must induce the beneficiary to undertake an investment, which it would not undertake, or would carry out in a restricted or different manner, without the aid. The Commission considers that, given the exceptional economic challenges that undertakings face due to the current crisis, it is generally the case that in the absence of the aid, beneficiaries would continue their activities without changes, provided that continuing their activities without changes does not entail a breach of Union law;

m.

the eligible costs are the difference between the costs of the aided project and the cost savings or additional revenues, compared to the situation in the absence of the aid, over the lifetime of the investment;

n.

the aid intensity must not exceed 40 % of the eligible costs. The aid intensity may be increased by 10 percentage points for aid granted to medium sized undertakings and by 20 percentage points for aid granted to small undertakings. The aid intensity may also be increased by 15 percentage points for investments delivering a reduction of direct greenhouse gas emissions of at least 55 % or of energy consumption of at least 25 % compared to the situation prior to the investment (******);

o.

as an alternative to the requirements set out in points (m) and (n), the investment aid may be granted in a competitive bidding process that is open, clear, transparent and non-discriminatory, based on objective criteria that are defined ex–ante and minimising the risk of strategic bidding. At least 70 % in the total selection criteria used for ranking bids must be defined in terms of aid per unit of environmental protection (such as EUR per tonne of CO2 reduced, or EUR per unit of energy saved). The budget related to the bidding process must be a binding constraint in that it can be expected that not all bidders will receive aid;

p.

the scheme must be designed in a way that allows to address windfall profits, including in times of extremely high electricity or natural gas prices, by putting in place a claw-back mechanism defined ex ante;

q.

aid under this section must not be combined with other aid for the same eligible costs.