#208 The SET Plan and EU Funding w/Eric Lecomte (EU Commission)

The SET Plan & EU Funding – Inside the Machine Room

How EU energy R&I priorities are made, funded and implemented

Check out the episode website

In this episode I’m joined by Eric Lecomte from the European Commission’s DG Energy – the first time I’ve had a Commission representative on the podcast – to unpack the SET Plan, or Strategic Energy Technology Plan, and its role in EU funding. Eric explains how the SET Plan started in 2007, was reshaped in 2015 as the research & innovation pillar of the Energy Union, and has since been anchored in the European Green Deal, the Net-Zero Industry Act and the Draghi report on competitiveness and coordination. We talk about the overall aim: aligning national and European R&I priorities on energy technologies so Member States, associated countries, industry and research are not all pulling in different directions.

We then zoom into the “machine room”: a steering group plus 14 Implementation Working Groups covering renewables, energy systems, efficiency in buildings and industry, transport, carbon capture and nuclear. Eric walks through how these groups co-develop Implementation Plans with concrete R&I activities that feed into Horizon Europe Cluster 5 topics, inspire national R&I programmes, and even shape calls in LIFE and discussions with the Innovation Fund. We explore concrete examples – industrial heat pumps and waste heat recovery topics, cooperation between the paper and heat pump sectors now replicated in the food & drink industry, and large-scale projects like green steel – before ending on the big challenges: mobilising national funding, avoiding duplication, overcoming Europe’s fear of failure and turning world-class technology into market uptake and manufacturing in Europe.

Time codes:

00:01:32 Introduction

00:03:44 Fly in

00:07:23 Introduction to the SET Plan

00:11:36 The SET Plan structure and governance

00:23:16 The role of the SET Plan in funding and competitiveness

00:45:26 Challenges and future outlook

00:48:09 The toughest challenge