The Net Zero Industry Act with new provisions on public procurement entered into force on 29 June 2024

With NZIA entering into force, it immediately becomes mandatory to apply certain non-price criteria in public procurement procedures where a net-zero technology is part of the subject matter.

The Net-Zero Industry Act aims to help the EU become home to clean technologies and make significant strides towards building a strong domestic manufacturing capacity of those technologies in the EU. One element to reach this goal are the provisions to facilitate the market access for net-zero products: Public authorities need to consider sustainability and resilience criteria for certain net-zero technologies in procurement processes as well as in auctions for the deployment of renewable energy and for other forms of public intervention that incentivise the purchase of net-zero products. 

For contracting authorities and contracting entities, this means that they need to apply three sets of criteria to their procurement of net-zero technologies: 

1. A minimum mandatory requirement on environmental sustainability, to be applied from the entry into force of the respective implementing act (planned March / April 2025)
2. An additional criterion, to be applied immediately to all contracts and to be chosen among the following: 
   1. Special condition relating to social or employment-related considerations 
   2. Requirement to demonstrate compliance with cybersecurity requirements 
   3. Specific contractual obligation to deliver on time 
3. The resilience contribution, to be applied from the entry into force of the respective implementing act (planned late 2024 / early 2025)

The public procurement of the following twelve net-zero technologies has to take into account the above mentioned criteria:

1. Solar technologies, including: solar photovoltaic, solar thermal electric and solar thermal technologies;
2. Onshore wind and offshore renewable technologies;
3. Battery and energy storage technologies;
4. Renewable energy technologies, not covered under the previous categories;
5. Heat pumps and geothermal energy technologies;
6. Hydrogen technologies, including electrolysers and fuel cells;
7. Sustainable biogas and biomethane technologies;
8. Carbon capture and storage technologies;
9. Electricity grid technologies, including electric charging technologies for transportation and technologies to digitalise the grid;
10. Nuclear fission energy technologies, including nuclear fuel cycle technologies;
11. Sustainable alternative fuels technologies;
12. Hydropower technologies;

More information can be found on the NZIA website or on this presentation.