EU-Wide Advantages & Opportunities for HORIZON-CL5-2025-04-D5-11

1. Single Market Access

• Full battery-electric vessels that attain 40 % range extension can immediately serve more than 20 000 km of inland waterways, 329 seaports and 1 400 island routes within the EU, tapping into a market of 450+ million consumers without customs barriers.

• Operators can commercialise solutions in any Member State under the freedom to provide transport services (Articles 56 & 58 TFEU), dramatically shortening pay-back times compared with fragmented national roll-outs.

• Uniform EU environmental charges (ETS-Maritime, FuelEU Maritime) will accelerate demand for zero-emission vessels, creating a single regulatory pull for project technologies.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• The call explicitly requires replication studies; consortia that include multinational shipyards (e.g. NL, ES, PL), battery gigafactories (SE, FR, DE) and inland waterway operators (BE–NL–DE Rhine corridor) can pool complementary know-how and share demonstration costs.

• Access to EU mobility R&I networks (Waterborne TP, ZEWT Partnership, ALICE logistics platform) facilitates open data, joint IP strategies and harmonised training curricula.

• Article 185/187‐type partnerships allow side-projects (e.g. Clean Hydrogen JU on hybridisation) to be plugged into the same pilot vessels, maximising cross-sector spill-overs.

3. Alignment with Core EU Policies

• European Green Deal & Fit-for-55: Directly decreases GHGs in a sector responsible for 3.7 % of EU CO₂.

• Sustainable & Smart Mobility Strategy (SSMS): Contributes to the target of 30 % modal shift of freight over 300 km to rail/waterborne by 2030.

• REPowerEU: Couples battery vessels with renewables on islands, reducing fossil fuel imports.

• Digital Europe & Data Act: Use of big-data ship performance analytics encourages interoperable EU data spaces.

• Strategic Autonomy: Strengthens the EU battery value chain (European Battery Alliance) and shipbuilding capacity (Important Project of Common European Interest – IPCEI).

4. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits

• Participation enables proposers to shape pan-EU safety standards (EMSA, CESNI, IEC/IEEE) while testing in multiple flag states, lowering later certification costs.

• Mutual Recognition of Classification Societies (Reg. 391/2009) means a single approval obtained in the project can be passported EU-wide.

• Alignment with AFIR & OPS standards eases deployment of rapid-charging infrastructure in any TEN-T core port.

5. Access to the EU Innovation Ecosystem

• More than 150 maritime RTOs and universities (NTUA, SINTEF, TU Delft, Chalmers) offer world-class hydrodynamics labs and battery testing centres that can be used under Horizon rules at internal cost rates.

• The ZEWT Partnership provides KPI monitoring, brokerage events and matchmaking with over 240 signed members, accelerating exploitation.

• Synergies with the European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs) support AI-driven energy-management modules, while Euroclusters offer SME vouchers for supply-chain readiness.

6. Funding & Financial Leverage

• Horizon grant (70 % for for-profits, 100 % for non-profits) can be combined with:

• Innovation Fund (large-scale deployment, CAPEX/OPEX support).

• CEF-AFIF (on-shore fast-charging, OPS & battery swapping infrastructure).

• EIB Green Shipping Guarantee and InvestEU maritime windows for debt financing.

• National RRP/ERDF funds for shipyard upgrades, aligned with State-aid rules via the General Block Exemption Regulation.

• Blended finance de-risks up-front investment, lowering WACC and improving business-case viability across EU corridors.

7. Scale & Impact Potential

• Fleet replication potential:

• ~1 300 Rhine & Danube cargo vessels >86 m suitable for retrofit (Area B).

• ~680 short-sea Ro-Ro/feeder vessels >400 GT operating <120 nm legs (Area A).

• EU-wide uptake could cut 2.8 Mt CO₂/y and 15 000 t SOx/NOx by 2035.

• Supports peripheral and outermost regions (ORs) by improving island connectivity, fostering cohesion policy goals.

8. Strategic Value for Applicants

• Early movers gain first-of-a-kind references recognised across all Member States, a decisive tender criterion in public service contracts under the revised Maritime State-Aid Guidelines.

• Joint IP assets benefit from EU Unitary Patent and UPC, lowering legal costs for multi-country exploitation.

• Possibility to form European Economic Interest Groupings (EEIGs) or Partnerships for Innovation Procurement (PCP/PPI) for follow-up commercial roll-outs.

9. Actionable Opportunities Checklist

• Build a consortium covering three maritime basins (e.g. Baltic, North Sea, Med) to maximise geographic representativeness for the evaluation criterion ‘impact.’

• Integrate EU-manufactured LFP or Na-ion cells to address strategic autonomy and qualify for potential CBAM exemptions.

• Plan replication studies on TEN-T Rhine-Alpine corridor & Adriatic island ferry network to demonstrate modal shift & island connectivity KPIs.

• Liaise with IEC/IEEE TC 18/69 working groups during the project to fast-track standard adoption and create a market barrier to non-EU competitors.

• Allocate budget for ZEWT KPI reporting & Waterborne TP dissemination events to maximise visibility and meet partnership obligations.

> Leveraging these EU-wide advantages turns the Horizon project from a single demonstration into a continental market-maker, positioning participants at the forefront of Europe’s transition to zero-emission waterborne transport.