The two largest public funding programs related to technical and societal energy solutions are The Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Programme (EUDP) and Innovation Fund Denmark (IFD). The Danish Energy Agency administrates the EUDP, which supports private companies and universities to develop and demonstrate new energy technologies, including solar heating and cooling. Innovation Fund Denmark supports strategic and applied energy research. Detailed information on the funding programs can be found on the following webpages: http://ens.dk/en/our-responsibilities/research-development/eudp and http://innovationsfonden.dk/en.
In 2022, EUDP granted two IEA SHC projects. Detailed information on funded projects and public energy research can be found on https://energiforskning.dk/en/projects.
EUDP is a general support programme for new and effective energy technologies with a general annual budget for 2022 of about 50 million EUR.
National Research Initiatives and Results
New silicone-based lenses for low cost Concentrated Solar Heat granted by EUDP (2019-2021, grant 5.81 million DKK and a total budget of 9.26 million DKK) will develop and demonstrate more effective, safe and durable lenses for concentrated solar power. Efficiency and durability will be improved by using better materials than the current thermoplastics, and safety and to some degree efficiency will be improved by new lens geometry designs. The responsible company is Heliac.
In 2015, EUDP granted the project Concentrated Solar Power (thermal) combined with biomass fired boiler and ORC plant, (2016-2020, grant 19.91 million DKK and total budget of 86.24 million DKK). The concentrated solar power plant is installed in order to supply heat for an ORC (Organic Ranking Cycle) plant, either alone or together with a Biomass fired boiler. The purpose of the Solar Power plant is to supply the residents in a small Danish city with district heat at a lower cost than the present natural gas fired boilers and to reduce the CO2 impact by reducing gas ad biomass use. The responsible company is Aalborg CSP.
Collaborative Research
The Danish Energy Agency/EUDP directly supports or through international cooperation schemes Danish companies, universities, and research institutions participating in international projects. This includes the direct financial support for participating in the TCPs under the International Energy Agency (IEA) and indirectly by means of common calls in the European Union (ERA-net schemes) and Nordic Energy Research.