European Commission approves €125.8M for three cross-border renewable energy projects

The European Commission has approved grants worth €125.81 million to finance works actions on three Cross-Border Renewable Energy (CB RES) projects, according to a statement from the European Commission.

Two of the awards relate to German-Polish district heating projects and the third is to support coordination of a cross-border onshore wind park near the Latvia–Lithuania border. Funded through the EU budget’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Energy, the selected actions will help these energy infrastructure investments and contribute to the EU’s decarbonisation objectives, while strengthening energy integration between Member States.

Selected actions

Unified Network for Innovative Transition in Energy Decarbonisation of HEATing - sub-project WORKS 3 (€70.0 million)

This action is part of the 2022-10-UNITED HEAT project — Unified Network for Innovative Transition in Energy Decarbonisation of HEATing — which aims to develop climate-neutral district heating in the cities of Görlitz (Germany)/Zgorzelec (Poland). The project received CB RES status in 2022 and has already progressed through a studies sub-project and two works sub-projects in 2024 and 2025.

This latest action represents the final works sub-projects under UNITED HEAT. It includes the cross-border pipeline enabling physical heat exchange and cross-border system balancing, physically interconnecting the district heating systems on both sides of the border, and ensuring the integration of all heat sources developed under the previous sub-projects.

Green Transformation of District Heating in the Twin City of Słubice & Frankfurt (Oder) (€11.41 million)

This action is part of the 2024-6-TWIN-HEAT project. The overarching objective of the TWIN HEAT project is to fully decarbonise district heating in Słubice, Poland, and to initiate the deep decarbonisation of district heating in Frankfurt, Germany, through a coordinated cross-border approach based on renewable energy sources.

This action’s main objective is to replace the existing coal-fired heat generation units in Słubice (SEC Region) with two modern biomass boilers using sustainable biomass (wood chips), each with a thermal capacity of 6 MW.

UELJO WP 1st Stage of Development (€44.40 million)

This action forms part of the 2024-3-UELJO WP project, which was granted CB RES status by the European Commission in 2025.

The overall project aims to develop a cross-border onshore wind park near the Latvia–Lithuania border. It is expected to comprise around 30 modern wind turbines and generate up to 680 GWh of renewable electricity annually. By making efficient use of shared transmission infrastructure, the project will contribute to the integration of renewable energy into the Baltic electricity system, support the decarbonisation of the regional energy sector, and strengthen cross-border cooperation between Latvia and Lithuania.

This action supports the first implementation phase of the project, particularly in Latvia, and includes:

- construction of the balance-of-plant infrastructure in Latvia;
- implementation of the grid connection works; and
- installation of wind turbines in Latvia.

Photo European Commission