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Over the lifetime of a wind turbine, operation and maintenance costs represent 25% of total levelised cost per kWh produced. The majority of these costs are attributed to the wind turbine’s blades, yet current methods of inspecting these blades are outdated and inefficient. Blade inspection procedures still largely relies on qualified inspectors roping down each blade to manually inspect for any flaws or defects present on the blade. This is clearly a very hazardous, time-consuming (5 hours), and expensive method (€1500). Other less used methods of blade inspection include capturing blade images from ground cameras and manual review by experts. However, poor image quality and strong backlight leaves many blade flaws undetected. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are now being used to take pictures of the blades from much closer up. Current UAV's however require dedicated experts for both flight control as well as image processing, analysis, and fault detection. Pro-Drone's integrated WindDrone Zenith’s solution is a breakthrough solution providing enabling 3-blade inspection in a single flight. Our technology solution is fully equipped with highly accurate inspection equipment hardware coupled with smart software. The software allows the UAV to be fly autonomously, avoid collisions, automatically detect any faults, and generate reports for the customer on each wind turbine inspected. Machine learning algorithms are used to continuously improve automated fault detection based on a growing database of captured images and their analysis. Our "BladeInsight" cloud reporting platform makes actionable reports available to our customers as part of this solution. Pro-Drone Zenith provides for a 50% direct cost saving, and decreases turbine inspection downtime by 6X, as compared to existing methods.

The world’s energy market, with an annual turnover of more than € 10 trillion, is in transition. Today’s renewables can replace 20-40% of fossil sources, however, their volatile energy output cause problems with grid stability and matching supply and demand. As a result, additional expenditure in the order of billions of € are required to expand the grid and adding storage solutions. EnerKíte offers a solution – tapping into an as of yet unused and stable energy source, providing twice the yield at half the cost to traditional horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT). EnerKítes - a future product portfolio of Airborne Wind Energy (AWE) Systems will harness the powerful and steady winds high above the blade tips of today’s wind turbines. Proprietary control software and machine design will make EnerKítes autonomous and robust and matching renewable energy demands even during lull and at night. EnerKíte is a Berlin-based venture led by pioneers in the wind and kite industry. It has developed a 30 kW working prototype that has provided the longest autonomous operation (72 hrs+) of any AWE player in the world. The SME Phase 2 project focuses on optimizing and validating the EK200, a 100 kW unit, as the commercial market entry model. Working closely with the utility company ENGIE, we will ensure that the technology is matured while anchoring the commercialization journey. Our entry strategy is to provide green energy directly where there is demand. We will address the renewable mini-grid market with a volume of €bn 7.2 p.a. - sufficient for a proper business case itself. We will deploy rural wind-storage charging stations to boost the €bn 40 by 2025 eMobility market, growing with a CAGR of 47.9%. EnerKíte’s value chain is centred around certifiable designs, IP and know-how. The need for scalable manufacturing skillsets prompts dialogues with Voith (DE), Siemens (DE) and Vestas (DK). The innovation effort provides a €m 50.9 business opportunity already for 2021-2026.

The transformation of Europe’s energy system creates both challenges and opportunities for the hydropower sector. Hydropower needs to seek out value within the electricity market aligned with other sources of renewable and sustainable energy, whilst operating and building plants in environmentally sensitive and acceptable ways. The call H2020 LC-SC3-CC-4-2018: “Support to sectorial fora”, item 2: “bringing together stakeholders of the hydropower sector in a forum” provides a unique opportunity to bring together the hydropower community and to develop a Research and Innovation Agenda, and a Technology Roadmap mapping implementation of that agenda. These will support implementation of research and innovation for new hydropower technologies and innovative mitigation measures. The HYDROPOWER-EUROPE project delivers these objectives through an extensive programme of stakeholder consultation. The consortium brings together six different associations and networks spanning the whole research and industry value chain. These networks, along with representatives of civil society and European and national authorities, will form the initial stakeholder consultation base. Through an extensive, cyclic programme of consultation – both online and through various regional, European and International workshops – research needs and priorities will be established supporting development of the Hydropower Research and Innovation Agenda. The consultation process also facilitates discussion around issues and perceptions affecting the implementation of hydropower in Europe. Conclusions from this will underpin development of the Technology Roadmap, addressing any issues affecting uptake of the research and innovation agenda. Finally, the HYDROPOWER-EUROPE project will also consider ways in which the forum, established through this initiative, may become sustainable beyond the 3-year project programme, so supporting uptake and implementation of the research and innovation agenda.

Maintenance costs are one of the largest problems in the wind energy market, adding to up to 40% of total wind turbine costs. Blades take the lion’s share of this, with 20-30% of all maintenance costs. Our solution, eolACC is the first condition-based monitoring on-blade sensor system to combine 3 features: blade crack detection, pitch angle measurements and blade icing detection. Monitoring all these features will save wind turbine owners up to €2.9 M across the turbine lifetime, recovering the investment in eolACC in the first 2 months. We studied the target market and competitors. Forecasts predict the wind power O&M market will grow to €22 bn by 2025. eolACC has full Freedom to Operate in our target markets of Europe, North America and Asia. We currently have over 50 customers which have purchased over 200 of our ice detection sensor system, many of which have been asking for an all-in-one solution as eolACC. We will leverage our connection with them to first expand into France, Belgium and the DACH region in 2021, then the rest of Europe and North America in 2022 and Asia in 2023. Our strategy will be to sell our product first to turbine owners directly, and then through large OEMs. We already have registered interest from several of our current customers (Enercon, e.on. Tecnocentre eolien, EVN, Verbund) to implement eolACC into their systems. We will use our current clients, our connection with Phoenix Contact and local sales partners to assist our dissemination efforts. We require a 24-month project with a budget of €1.62 M to bring eolACC to market. Our Work Plan is composed of 3 Technical Work Packages, one Commercial and one for Project Management. Our Phase 2 project will also result in the creation of 6 new jobs. The project is highly profitable, bringing a 4.01 ROI up to 2024 for the €1.62M required to bring our innovation to market. This will translate into a payback period of 2 years and total revenues of almost €12M per year to 2024.

Solar Energy is the most abundant renewable energy source available for our Planet. Light energy conversion into chemical energy by photosynthetic organisms is indeed the main conversion energy step, which originated high energy containing fossil deposits, now being depleted. By the way, plant or algae biomass may still be used to produce biofuels, as bio-ethanol, bio-diesel and bio-hydrogen. Microalgae exploitation for biofuels production have the considerable advantages of being sustainable and not in competition with food production, since not-arable lands, waste water and industrial gasses can be used for algae cultivation. Considering that only 45% of the sunlight covers the range of wavelengths that can be absorbed and used for photosynthesis, the maximum photosynthetic efficiency achievable in microalgae is 10%. On these bases, a photobioreactor carrying 600 l/m-2 would produce 294 Tons/ha/year of biomass of which 30% to 80%, depending on strain and growth conditions, being oil. However this potential has not been exploited yet, since biomass and biofuels yield on industrial scale obtained up to now were relatively low and with high costs of production. The main limitation encountered for sustained biomass production in microalgae by sunlight conversion is low light use efficiency, reduced from the theoretical value of 10% to 1-3%. This low light use efficiency is mainly due to a combined effect of reduced light penetration to deeper layers in highly pigmented cultures, where light available is almost completely absorbed by the outer layers, and an extremely high (up to 80%) thermal dissipation of the light absorbed. This project aims to investigate the molecular basis for efficient light energy conversion into chemical energy, in order to significantly increase the biomass production in microalgae combining a solid investigation of the principles of light energy conversion with biotechnological engineering of algal strains.

The main objective of the HyCARE project is the development of a prototype hydrogen storage tank with use of a solid-state hydrogen carrier on large scale. The tank will be based on an innovative concept, joining hydrogen and heat storage, in order to improve energy efficiency of the whole system. The developed tank will be installed in the site of ENGIE LAB CRIGEN, which is a research and operational expertise center dedicated to gas, new energy sources and emerging technologies. The center and its 350 staff are located at Plaine Saint-Denis and Alfortville in the Paris Region (F). In particular, the solid-state hydrogen tank will be installed in a Living Lab aimed to develop and explore innovative energy storage solutions. The developed tank will be joined with a PEM electrolyzer as hydrogen provider and a PEM fuel cell as hydrogen user. The following goals are planned in HyCARE: - High quantity of stored hydrogen >= 50 kg - Low pressure < 50 bar and low temperature < 100°C - Low foot print, comparable to liquid hydrogen storage - Innovative design - Hydrogen storage coupled with thermal energy storage - Improved energy efficiency - Integration with an electrolyser (EL) and a fuel cell (FC) - Demonstration in real application - Improved safety - Techno-economical evaluation of the innovative solution - Analysis of the environmental impact via Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) - Exploitation of possible industrial applications - Dissemination of results at various levels - Engagement of local people and institution in the demonstration site

Lancey Energy Storage is pioneering a new era for energy storage, in which home appliances can contribute to the energy transition by storing electricity and engaging citizens. To fight global warming, renewable energy (RE) production is soaring, which is good news but has direct consequences on network management due to the intermittency of solar and wind power. Distributed storage can help better regulating the power grid and integrating more RE through self consumption and grid services. But few can afford it. Lancey aims at democratizing it by embarking a battery into a space heater. In France alone, 1/3 of real estate is electrically heated. Yet 1st generation electric heaters consume a lot of electricity and are highly responsible for the evening winter power peaks. Lancey has the solution to both of these issues. With its efficient heating technologies and energy management system, Lancey heater fine tunes to users’ needs while its battery charges off peak or with renewable energy surplus and discharges to prevent it from consuming power during peak hours. Total heating bill reduction can reach up to 50%. In 1,5 year of existence, Lancey has put on the market an innovative patented product rewarded by a CES Best innovation award. Yet this first version of the Lancey heater is still limited as its battery can only be used to power the heater. Solar QUEST’s purpose is to develop the V2 of Lancey heater, able to reinject power stored in the battery into buildings’ grid to power other devices. It will unlock Lancey’s participation to grid services and make it possible to maximise PV installations’ self consumption rate in summer too. With its Danish partner Tomorrow, Lancey will showcase the CO2 emissions its offsets, better engage users on energy transition and integrate self-consumption and grid services parameters into Lancey’s management algorithms. Lancey will perform pilot demonstrations of this new product in France, Canada and Finland with key partners.

The proposed Initial Training Network entitled "Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters for Self-Powered Automotive Sensors: from Advanced Lead-Free Materials to Smart Systems (ENHANCE)" will provide Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) with broad and intensive training within a multidisciplinary research and teaching environment. Key training topics will include development of energy harvesters compatible with MEMS technology and able to power wireless sensor. Applied to automobiles, such technology will allow for 50 kg of weight saving, connection simplification, space reduction, and reduced maintenance costs - all major steps towards creating green vehicles. Other important topics include technology innovation, education and intellectual asset management. ENHANCE links world-leading research groups at academic institutions to give a combined, integrated approach of synthesis/fabrication, characterization, modeling/theory linked to concepts for materials integration in devices and systems. Such a science-supported total engineering approach will lead towards efficient piezoelectric energy harvesters viable for the automotive industry. ESRs will focus on this common research objective, applying a multidisciplinary bottom-up approach, which can be summarized by : "engineered molecule- advanced material- designed device - smart system". ENHANCE also seeks to intensify the relationship between academic and private sectors, and to train highly skilled young researchers for new materials and device technologies. Both are essential to provide a strong European lead over the rest of the world in this highly competitive industry.

SheaRIOS is a solution for the Wind Turbine Blade (WTB) inspection industry that enables easier, faster and more accurate inspection utilising robotics and shearography, a high-quality method that is applied outside of the laboratory for the first time. A deployment platform will ascend on the wind turbine tower and deploy a work climber on the base of the blade. The climber will move on the blade by means of air-suction and carry out inspection with a shearography kit on a cantilever. The deployment platform will also act as the power and data link. Operational modeling is done by EDF, the end-users that drive this Innovation Action. Preliminary testing and validation of the market-readiness of SheaRIOS robotic application will take place at their site, both on-shore (EDF R&D) and off-shore (EDF Renewables). Three competitive small and mid-scale technology companies from three European countries will contribute so Europe will (1) integrate more wind power, (2) reduce operational costs, (3) keep the technology lead, and (4) remain a major export. As per Wind Europe, these are the targets for enabling wind to become the backbone of our electricity generation system. Based on our analysis, the non-destructive testing service provider would save 1,055€ per wind turbine inspection and payback of SheaRIOS investment will be achieved after 152 inspections, or the first 2 years. The wind farm operator will save more than 1 full day per wind turbine inspection, because of the reduced inspection time, which directly translates to less revenue lost due to idle wind turbines. Finally, the cumulative savings for a period of the first 5 years will translate to €92.74m, assuming SheaRIOS will be successful in averting just 20% of the unforeseen WTB failures and contributing to increased health and safety for the rope access workers that are involved in hundreds of accidents each year. [1] Wind Europe, “Making transition work”, September 2016

IIn the light of the EU 2030 Climate and Energy framework, MUSTEC aims to explore and propose concrete solutions to overcome the various factors that hinder the deployment of concentrated solar power (CSP) projects in Southern Europe capable of supplying renewable electricity on demand to Central and Northern European countries. To do so, the project will analyze the drivers and barriers to CSP deployment and renewable energy (RE) cooperation in Europe, identify future CSP cooperation opportunities and will propose a set of concrete measures to unlock the existing potential. To achieve these objectives, MUSTEC will build on the experience and knowledge generated around the cooperation mechanisms and CSP industry developments building on concrete CSP case studies. Thereby we will consider the present and future European energy market design and policies as well as the value of CSP at electricity markets and related economic and environmental benefits. In this respect, MUSTEC combines a dedicated, comprehensive and multi-disciplinary analysis of past, present and future CSP cooperation opportunities with a constant engagement and consultation with policy makers and market participants. This will be achieved through an intense and continuous stakeholder dialogue and by establishing a tailor-made knowledge sharing network. The MUSTEC consortium consists of nine renowned institutions from six European countries and includes many of the most prolific researchers in the European energy policy community, with very long track records of research in European and nationally funded energy policy research projects.