On December 4, 2025, the European Commission opened the first Heat Auction of the Innovation Fund (IF25), the first pan-European auction specifically designed to decarbonize industrial process heat and the seed of the future Industrial Decarbonisation Bank. The call for tenders closed on February 19, 2026 and, in May 2026, we already know the successful bidders.
The result leaves a message that is hard to ignore for the Spanish industry: Spain is the first country in Europe in this auction, and the clearly dominant technology among the winning projects is electric resistance steam boilers – exactly the technology that Giconmes has been manufacturing since 1957 with the HGV range.
What is the Innovation Fund 2025 Heat Auction?
The Heat Auction of the Innovation Fund 2025 is a competitive grant scheme financed with revenues from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), endowed with 1 billion euros and complemented by an additional 50 million euros of Spanish national contribution. Its objective is to accelerate the substitution of fossil heat by electrified or renewable heat in industry.
It works through a pay-as-bid mechanism: each project submits the amount of aid it needs expressed in euros per ton of CO₂ avoided (€/tCO₂), bids are ranked from lowest to highest price and awarded until the budget is exhausted. The aid takes the form of a fixed premium per ton of CO₂ avoided, paid for a maximum of five years and – this is the key point – only when the plant is in operation. The auction does not finance CAPEX: it pays verified results.
The technological scope includes heat pumps, furnaces, direct and indirect resistance heating, plasma, solar thermal, geothermal, storage and, above all, electric boilers, with a minimum of 3 MW thermal of new installed capacity. The budget is divided into three baskets per temperature:
- High temperature (>400 °C) – 500 M€. Dominated by furnaces.
- Average temperature ≥5 MW (100-400 °C) – 350 M€. Dominated by electric boilers.
- Average temperature 3-5 MW (100-400 °C) – 150 M€. Dominated by electric boilers.
Spain, undisputed auction leader
The auction received 85 bids from 14 countries and was oversubscribed 1.4 times. In the end, 65 projects were selected for a total of 396.5 million euros: 5 in high temperature (62.1 M€), 44 in medium temperature ≥5 MW (286.5 M€) and 16 in medium temperature 3-5 MW (47.9 M€).
Spain tops the list in terms of both number of projects and budget: 24 of the 65 projects selected(37%) and 135.6 million euros(34% of the total awarded), ahead of France (21 projects, 100.6 million euros). No other country comes close:
By target sector, the projects cover chemicals, pulp and paper, food and beverages, glass, ceramics and building materials, iron and steel, textiles and pharmaceuticals – process heat-intensive sectors that until now have had little presence in the Innovation Fund.
Boilers and electric heaters dominate the market.
The most relevant fact for any industry planning its electrification: 50 of the 65 projects selected (77%) use electric resistance heating, either directly or indirectly. The Commission itself summarizes it bluntly: most of the projects in the medium-temperature baskets use electric boilers of various types:
In addition, the medium temperature baskets (100-400 °C) concentrate 60 of the 65 projects. This is precisely the range of saturated industrial steam: an electric boiler producing steam at 16 bar operates at around 200 °C, well within the medium temperature range. And 31 % of the projects will directly replace natural gas capacity, which requires decommissioning the old gas boilers.
In summary: the European program is mainly financing the replacement of gas boilers with medium-temperature electric resistance steam boilers. Spain is the country where this technology will be most widely deployed in the coming years.
When do projects need to be implemented? The clock is ticking
The aid is not collected when the award is received, but when the plant is producing decarbonized and verified heat. This is why the execution deadlines are strict and are accompanied by a performance guarantee of 6 % of the aid amount: if the project is not completed on time, the subsidy is forfeited and the guarantee is forfeited:
What this means: with commissioning limited to ~2030 and the premium tied to plant up and running, the window to design, purchase and install electric steam boilers is now. Every month that commissioning is brought forward is an extra month of premium collected – and a margin of safety against the performance guarantee.
How Giconmes helps you: the HGV range (Power to Heat)
Giconmes has been manufacturing industrial steam since 1957. The HGV range are high-capacity electric resistance steam boilers, conceived within the Power to Heat concept: converting electrical energy – ideally low-cost renewable surplus – into process steam. It is literally the technology that funds the Heat Auction.
To exceed the threshold of ≥ 3 MW thermal required by medium temperature baskets, Giconmes offers both single units (the HGV-6000 already reaches 3.34 MW) and multi-boiler systems on skid that comfortably exceed that power.
A real example: a food and beverage factory in the Netherlands with two electric boilers of 1,344 kW each, reverse osmosis, degasser, steam distributor and 8 m control cabinet – designed to European standards and approved by TÜV.
HGV range – models and power ratings
The speed of execution is also a direct economic advantage: as these are factory-tested turnkey systems, the time to commissioning is shortened. And since the European premium is only collected when the plant is operational, getting into operation earlier means starting to collect earlier and reducing the risk of missing the 2030 deadline.
Have you been awarded the Heat Auction in Spain? If your project involves medium temperature electric resistance steam boilers, let’s talk. We help you to size the HGV system, define the multi-boiler configuration and plan the execution to reach operation on time.