The EU INnovation Centre for Industrial Transformation and Emissions (INCITE) is a centre, set up within the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) Sevilla in June 2024, to promote innovation in large agro-industrial EU installations, contributing to the objectives of reaching climate neutrality, increasing resource efficiency, and establishing a non-toxic environment and a circular economy.
INCITE has been conceived under the revised Industrial Emissions Directive (IED). Article 27(a) of the revised Directive 2010/75/EU on industrial emissions (hereafter ‘IED’) requires the Commission to establish and operate an INnovation Centre for Industrial Transformation and Emissions (the ‘centre’ or INCITE) in order to promote innovation in agro-industrial installations.
INCITE collects and analyses information on innovative industrial techniques (including emerging and transformative techniques) which contribute inter alia to minimisation of pollution, decarbonisation, resource efficiency, and a circular economy using fewer or safer chemicals.
INCITE will cover all industrial sectors under the IED (activities listed in Annex I to the IED). During its first years of operation INCITE will focus work on energy-intensive industries (e.g. iron and steel, cement, chemicals production).
- INCITE will assess with full transparency the degree of maturity and environmental performance of innovative techniques that will be deployed for decarbonisation, resource efficiency, circular economy and minimisation of pollution to foster the transformation of European industry, using a holistic approach that will take into consideration a range of environmental and human health impacts and economic aspects.
- INCITE aims to support frontrunners who might apply for (benefit from) the provisions under Chapter II(a) of the revised IED.
- With the amended IED provisions, more emphasis is placed on emerging techniques, such as allowing extended periods for testing and considering emission levels associated with emerging techniques. Plant operators are allowed to test emerging techniques within their own installations for a total period of time not exceeding 30 months. During this time, they will be allowed temporary derogations from IED permit conditions, subject to monitoring by permitting authorities.
- Frontrunners will also be allowed an additional 2 years to implement new environmentally improved techniques (i.e. a total of 6 years) that INCITE has identified as being close to market deployment.
- In cases of a deep industrial transformation of an industrial installation set out by the operator in a transformation plan, the operator may benefit from an extended period for the installation to comply with the updated permit conditions up to a total of 8 years maximum.
INCITE is positioned at the centre of an ecosystem that includes industry, technology providers, Member States, environmental NGOs, research and technology organisations, financial actors, private investors, the general public and academia. INCITE acts not only as an innovation centre but also as a cooperation platform for a wide range of actors in the industrial transition space.
INCITE works in close cooperation with DG ENV, but also with support from other Commission DGs (e.g. RTD, CLIMA, ENER, GROW).
- INCITE sets up a global and publicly available information platform to enable the collection of a continuous stream of information on innovative techniques. This platform will also enable the mapping of demonstration plants and First-Of-A-Kind (FOAK) industrial installations.
- INCITE creates a unique Forum where all stakeholders will exchange information and discuss innovative techniques.
- INCITE organises sectoral workshops involving industry, MS competent authorities, research and technology organisations, environmental NGOs, relevant Commission DGs (e.g. ENV, RTD, CLIMA, GROW, ENER) to gather information on the environmental performance and economic aspects of relevant innovative techniques.
- INCITE performs site visits to selected FOAK installations plants to gather information on technological advances and potential barriers to implementation / permitting.
- INCITE publishes its recommendations in a high-level JRC technical report and presents the information in a way that will ease the administrative burden for Member States related to permitting of installations, help direct national and/or EU funding towards the most promising technologies and facilitate the verification process carried out by public or private investors during the industrial transition.
- INCITE provides holistic assessments of the environmental performance and economic viability of innovative technologies, and this will be essential to ensure that no inappropriate decisions on industrial transformation are taken.
The technical recommendation reports published by INCITE are documents:
- summarising for IED sectors the findings resulting from the analysis and assessment of the information submitted to the INCITE database, regarding techniques to depollute, decarbonise and/or increase circularity or resource efficiency;
- providing recommendations for prioritisation of BREF reviews, e.g. priority should be given to BREF reviews for those industrial sectors with a high number of techniques at a sufficient level of technological maturity and with the largest potential impact on decarbonisation, depollution and circularity;
- presenting sectoral scoreboards on the degree of advancement of industrial sectors towards the objectives of decarbonisation for example and to identify technological gaps in IED sectors.
- Chart with industry a faster technological innovation path towards depollution, decarbonisation, resource efficiency and circular economy.
- Ease access to finance for industry by facilitating the credibility check of upcoming industrial transformation plans.
- Direct EU and national funding for innovation and industrial transformation towards the most promising technologies by removing information barriers.
- Help promoting and showcasing success stories for cutting-edge clean technologies financed by EU programmes and funds.
- Enable enhanced cooperation and synergies amongst technology providers by identifying opportunities for development of joint projects.
- Provide sound technical recommendations on innovative techniques that will help sustainable finance actors verify alignment with taxonomy criteria or carry out credibility checks for transformation plans.
Information on innovative techniques is provided through the INCITE information platform. Specific templates are used for this purpose.
Please note that INCITE is not a place to advertise commercial products. Techniques need to be described in a neutral way, e.g. in terms of their technical features, costs, environmental performance.
Techniques to be collected and analysed by INCITE shall be at a level of technological maturity that has been demonstrated in a relevant environment (industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies) or system prototype demonstration in an operational environment (i.e. at least Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6-7). Techniques linked to FOAK and/or demonstration installations, or very close to being implemented at full scale, are particularly relevant for INCITE.
The environmental performance of a technique is assessed through a comparative assessment of this technique with a relevant alternative or baseline, which should be a technique that is implemented in industrial installations, commercially available and recognised as providing the highest possible level of environmental protection (e.g. Best Available Technique). The aim of the environmental performance assessment is to determine whether the technique either provides a higher level of environmental protection or an equal level of environmental protection at lower costs than the relevant alternative currently applied.
Any confidential business information or sensitive information remains accessible only to the INCITE team. No such information will be shown in the publicly available INCITE information platform.
The INCITE team assesses the information submitted via the information platform in order to identify whether the technique is an innovative technique within the scope of the IED. Each technique is evaluated with regards to its level of technological maturity and environmental performance. External experts may be involved to support the INCITE team in the evaluation process, where necessary (e.g. for the evaluation of specific techniques).
INCITE supports and feeds the Sevilla process by providing information on those techniques which are at a sufficient level of technological maturity and demonstrate an improved environmental performance compared to existing Best Available Techniques (BAT) or the same environmental performance with a reduced cost. Moreover, the outcomes of INCITE may trigger specific BAT Reference Document reviews.