Your grant INNOVAE - Renovación de edificios terciarios a cero emisiones, effortless

Company Requirements

To be able to apply for this financing line, your company must meet the following requirements

• Have a tax domicile in Spain.
• Be:
  • Companies with their own legal personality, of any size: micro, small, medium, and large enterprises.
  • Universities and research and development centers with their own legal personality.
  • The public sector as defined in Article 2 of Law 40/2015. This includes associations of municipalities or provinces.
  • Energy service companies, as defined in Article 19 of Royal Decree-Law 6/2010: companies that carry out the investment at the client's premises and take on economic risk, because they are paid wholly or partly on the basis of the energy savings achieved. They must operate under a valid energy services contract with the property owner, with verifiable, measurable or estimable savings, and pass on the grant to the owner or operator of the building.
  • Homeowners’ associations or groups of homeowners’ associations, established in accordance with Article 5 of Law 49/1960 on Condominium Ownership. For tertiary-sector buildings only: homeowners’ associations for residential buildings are not eligible.
  • Nonprofit entities of general interest in the third sector, associations, and foundations, that meet the requirements of Law 43/2015 and are legally established in accordance with Law 50/2002 (foundations) or Organic Law 1/2002 (right of association). They must have been registered for at least three years as of the date of publication of the call for applications.
• Relationship to the building: Ownership is not a requirement for eligibility as a beneficiary. The applicant must provide documentation proving ownership of the building (descriptive and graphic cadastral certification) and, if not the owner, must also provide documentation or a contract proving express authority to carry out the work (lease, operating agreement, etc.). A tenant may, therefore, apply for the grant.
• Company size determines the aid intensity (small: 65%, medium: 55%, large enterprises: 45%, generally speaking).
• Applicants without economic activity: They are eligible for a maximum aid intensity of 70%, but must provide documentary evidence of this status. This applies to third-sector entities and certain public-sector entities.
• The following are not eligible to apply for this subprogram: individuals engaged in economic activity, as well as consortia and business groups.

Limits

The following limits apply to this financing line

• Only one application per beneficiary and location in this call — in practice, one application per building. Several buildings may only be combined in one application where they form a single building complex in the same location, responding to a unitary project and used jointly (for example a school campus with classrooms, gym and canteen); even then, a separate current and renovated energy performance certificate must be provided for each building. A beneficiary may nevertheless file one application in each of the four INNOVAE subprogrammes.
• Excluding technical requirements — failing any of these rules the project out:
  • The building use must be one of the eligible tertiary uses. Industrial buildings are outside the scope, even where food is stored or processed in them.
  • The renovated building's primary energy consumption must be covered exclusively by on-site or nearby renewable energy. Collective self-consumption is not accepted, since it is technically equivalent to a renewable energy community.
  • The works must combine two or more of the seven eligible categories.
  • The building must reach rating A or B on the CO₂ emissions scale.
  • Minimum saving of 60 % of primary energy and 20 % of final energy.
• Buildings in a state of ruin are not eligible (that would be new build rather than renovation). Buildings that are unused but in a good state of repair are eligible, including with a change of use.
• Photovoltaics: not an eligible cost, but usually necessary. On-site PV generation does not count as final energy saving, so it cannot be funded under category 6. It does, however, score under the innovation criterion, and it must be included in the renovated building's energy performance certificate — in many cases it is what makes the 60 % primary energy saving achievable. Batteries are treated the same way.
• Registered current energy performance certificate: the certificate for the building's existing state must be registered with the regional authority at the time of application. The energy label alone is not accepted, and an energy audit is not a valid substitute.
• Comparable certificates: both certificates must be produced with the same recognised software and the same version.
• Exclusionary assessment criteria: projects that do not meet the requirements of the governing rules, those that show no innovation, those consisting solely of studies and those scoring below 50 points out of 100 are ruled out.
• Incompatible with Energy Saving Certificates (CAE).
• This is not de minimis aid. It falls under Regulation (EU) 651/2014, so it does not use up the company's €300,000 de minimis ceiling. It is, however, subject to the maximum aid intensities in Article 38a of that Regulation (investment aid for energy efficiency measures in buildings). Applicable percentages:
  • Rest of the country: large company 45 %, medium 55 %, small 65 %.
  • Assisted areas under Article 107(3)(c) of the Treaty: large company 50 %, medium 60 %, small 70 %.
  • Assisted areas under Article 107(3)(a) of the Treaty: large company 60 %, medium 70 %, small 80 %.
  • Applicants without economic activity: 70 %, as set by the governing rules.
  • How the figures are built up: the baseline in Article 38a is 30 %, plus 15 points because the programme anticipates requirements of Directive (EU) 2024/1275 that are not yet mandatory in Spain, plus 10 points for medium-sized and 20 points for small enterprises, plus 5 points in assisted areas under Article 107(3)(c) and 15 points in those under Article 107(3)(a). For an SME this means a range of 55 % to 80 %.
  • Watch out — the 15-point uplift is temporary. IDAE states that once the Directive is transposed into Spanish law, that uplift can no longer be applied. It is worth flagging to the client that the intensities above hold for this call but are not a stable reference for future ones.
  • Unlike the other subprogrammes, no reference investment is deducted here: the intensity applies to the total eligible investment cost. These are the highest intensities and the most favourable calculation basis in the whole programme.
  • The assisted-area uplift is calculated automatically by the application form once the municipality is entered. It can also be checked against the "Mapa de ayudas regionales" published on the programme's website (regional aid map for Spain 2022-2027, mid-term revision).