The modernization fund supports: investments in renewable energy generation and use, energy efficiency, energy storage, modernization of energy networks, including district heating systems, pipelines and grids, and equitable transformation in coal-dependent regions.
The fund is financed by proceeds from the auctioning of emission allowances under the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme, and aims to support ten EU member states (with lower incomes) in transforming their economies towards climate neutrality. The beneficiaries are: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
The fund complements other European instruments, such as the Cohesion Policy and the Fair Transition Fund. In 2021, funding of €898.43 million was made available to countries as part of this support. In its second year, a total of €4.11 billion was disbursed from the fund to support 61 projects in eight beneficiary countries. The projects will help modernize energy systems, reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the energy, industrial, transportation and agricultural sectors, and improve energy efficiency. With this support, member states will be able to meet their 2030 climate and energy targets, and achieve the environmental transformation of the EU as a whole more quickly.
Under the 2022 fund. Poland received 643.2 million euros, which were allocated, among other things for the implementation of projects to build heating plants based on renewable energy sources and improve industrial energy efficiency.