A study could cover in-depth investigation and exploration of the risk factors of a project e.g. safety, technical, environmental, regulatory, economic or legal issues to determine whether and how the project should be implemented.

While CEF Energy does not finance technological development, in justified cases, studies can include also pilot projects, such as pilot plants, that are eventually needed to test technologies that are at TRL 7-8, innovative processes or techniques. Such pilot projects should be strictly related to eligible components of the CB RES project.

For more mature projects, a study may have the objective to move the project through the development stage to a Final Investment Decision (FID) and may include Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) studies, technical design studies, geophysical surveys, seabed surveys, tasks related to territorial planning, environmental assessments and comparable studies as applicable. Activities may also include stakeholder engagement and preparation of the procurement procedure for the construction phase.

A study could also be used to set out in detail the operational aspects of a cooperation between Member States, or between Member States and third countries, such as the precise legal set up of the financing arrangement e.g. the cross-border tender or the regulatory set up of the cooperation project, or the arrangement on the allocation of costs and benefits between the participating counties.

For each of the CB RES projects, the list of components that are included in the CB RES status can be found in the technical documentation supporting the Delegated Regulation that establishes the CB RES list.

Proposals for studies can cover any of the elements of the CB RES status project contained in the technical documentation.

While the focus of the study should be related to the renewable energy generation component of the project, in the case of projects with additional (non-RES generation) elements such as grid infrastructure, storage facilities, conversion of the renewable electricity, studies may also cover the interplay between those elements and the renewable energy component, if the applicants justify the necessity for the study to capture the project set-up as a whole.