LONDON, UK: Business Finland has approved a €34 million grant funding to Solar Foods. To date, that is the single largest public grant funding for mobile agriculture within the world. The grant is the primary batch of funding for Solar Foods due the recent IPCEI notification.
In September 2022, Solar Foods was chosen to be a half of the European Commission’s strategic hydrogen economy core. Solar Foods’ €600 million funding programme, which additionally includes the future Factory 02, was notified as a hydrogen IPCEI (Important Project of Common European Interest) project with a most state aid of €110 million.
In alignment with the R&D phase plan of the IPCEI notification, Solar Foods will use the grant to ramp up its hydrogen fermentation facility, Factory 01, and enter the engineering phase with the next Factory 02.
The ‘hydrogen IPCEI’ initiative is about research, innovation, and first industrial deployment (FID) of related infrastructure within the European hydrogen worth chain. The grant decision introduced today helps the primary phase of the IPCEI project roadmap the place the engineering, construction and ramp-up of Solar Foods Factory 01 is a central piece.
“With Christmas on the doorstep, we will see social media full of unboxing videos. For us, this grant is not a Christmas current however the results of 1 and a half years of negotiation and the hard work done by the people behind the Finnish innovation system”, Pasi Vainikka, CEO and co-founder of Solar Foods says.
“The grant demonstrates how Business Finland’s innovation system is able to think outside the field and desires to support the commercialisation of scientific discoveries rising from the intersections of scientific disciplines. We don’t actually match into any single conventional analysis and innovation category: we do clean-tech, food-tech, hydrogen technology and on a systemic level support the restoration of pure ecosystems.”
Solar Foods’ Factory 01 has reached its full roof height at Vantaa, Finland, and course of installations are set to start on Q1/2023. Factory 01 is aimed to be fully operational in Q1/2024. The data and operational experiences from the factory are utilized in finalising the engineering for Factory 02.