Through the recently opened call, the European Commission’s Connecting Europe Facility – Digital (CEF Digital) will contribute to the digitalisation of transport and energy by supporting the preparation for implementing Operational Digital Platforms (ODPs); the first step in a two-phase approach to their deployment.
In light of the unprecedented energy crisis, CEF Digital will contribute to achieving the EU’s environmental, energy and digitalisation targets as well as energy and digital security and sovereignty by enabling a cyber-secure Internet of Energy and an optimised transport system along major European pathways. With a budget of €4 million and complete funding of the activities, this call will set up a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) for ODPs in transport and energy infrastructures across Europe. The CSA is important as it will define the cross-border services and infrastructure that will receive much larger co-funding to be deployed in Europe.
The ODPs in question will “retro-fit” the existing energy and transport infrastructures with the required cross-border digital infrastructure and will build on and integrate with existing and emerging European data, cloud and edge computing and connectivity infrastructures, in particular those supported in other parts of the CEF Digital, Horizon Europe and DIGITAL programmes. They will comply with the principles of the common European data spaces and could be among the first practical implementations of the said data spaces.
On 25 October 2022, the Commission’s Directorate-General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) and the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) will organise a joint virtual Info Day where registrants will be able to learn more about the ODPs and other topics of the open calls.
The submission deadline for the Call for Proposals is 21 March 2023 at 17:00 CET.
More information
Press release: Launch of new calls for proposals, with budget €277 million, to support investments in digital connectivity infrastructures