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SDHp2m stands for ‘Solar District Heating (SDH)’ and actions from ‘Policy to Market’. The project addresses market uptake challenges for a wider use of district heating and cooling systems (DHC) with high shares of RES, specifically the action focuses on the use of large-scale solar thermal plants combined with other RES in DHC systems. The key approach of the project is to develop, improve and implement in 9 participating EU regions advanced policies and support measures for SDH. In 3 focus regions Thuringia (DE), Styria (AT) and Rhone-Alpes (FR) the regulating regional authorities are participating as project partners to ensure a strong implementation capacity within the project. In 6 follower regions from BG, DE, IT, PL, SE the regulating authorities are engaged through letters of commitment. The project activities aim at a direct mobilization of investments in SDH and hence a significant market rollout. The project work program in the participating regions follows a process including 1) strategy and action planning based on a survey, best practices and stakeholder consultation 2) an implementation phase starting at an early project stage and 3) efficient dissemination of the project results at national and international level. Adressed market uptake challenges are: Improved RES DHC policy, better access to plant financing and business models, sustained public acceptance and bridging the gap between policy and market through market support and capacity building. Denmark and Sweden reached already today a high share of RES in DHC and shall be used as a role model for this project. The direct expected outcome and impact of SDHp2m is estimated to an installed or planned new RES DHC capacity and new SDH capacity directly triggered by the project until project end corresponding to a total investment of 350 Mio. € and leading to 1 420 GWh RES heat and cold production per year. A multiple effect is expected in the period after the project and in further EU regions.

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.

Building methodology in skyscrapers marked a turning point in the construction sector. Due to the high altitude of those buildings, the only way of building them is a crane that rises in the same manner the skyscraper does. The main objective of the AIRCRANE project is to complete, qualify, standard setting and demonstrate in real working conditions a self-climbing telescopic crane (AIRCRANE) for the construction of full-concrete towers for wind turbines, at very low cost compared to current market solutions. This new solution has been inspired by the skyscraper’s building methodology. As a consequence of the development of this new crane, the second objective will be the introduction in the market of a new full-concrete tower with no height limit and with a new patented procedure of building that will bring reliability, time saving, quality and workers safety. In the current decade the main trend in the wind energy sector is to decrease the costs of the energy produced by wind turbines. One of the main strategies is the installation of the rotor axis (as well as nacelle and generator) at higher heights, as much as possible, where turbulences are minor and the efficiency of the equipment is higher. However, the wind industry has found some technical and economic constraints given by the construction of steel towers. This constraints are related to: size limitations in transport (larger diameters of tower segments), cost increase for heights greater than 100m., vibrations, etc.. Full concrete towers, built with precast concrete elements are a feasible solution: easy to transport, more durable (~50 years vs. ~25 years of steel), less vibrant, less required maintenance, etc. Another advantage is that concrete annual average price is significantly lower than steel. The development of the new AIRCRANE will help in the construction of full concrete towers, to reach heights unreachable with conventional nowadays crawler cranes (>140m) and at a much lower cost.

GeoUS will support increased research excellence in geothermal energy at VSB -Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic through close cooperation with Fraunhofer Institute, Germany and University of Vaasa, Finland. The ultimate goal is the development of multi-disciplinary research and innovation skills in the Czech Republic, focused on the fundamental and practical aspects of developing geothermal as a sustainable energy source. GeoUS will enable VSB to expand its network with leading research organisations in geothermal energy. It also involves young researchers to support future development of research activities impacting in the Moravia Region in line with the Regional and National Research and Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialization (RIS3 Strategy) and ESIF targets. The results will be widely shared with City Authority of Ostrava, Moravian-Silesian Regional Authority and also with authorities at national level. GeoUS will: 1. Transfer knowledge and build excellent research. 2. Increase scientific excellence in thermal characterization and mathematical modelling of heat flows and temperature fields and in measurement and control of energy flows. 3. Improve the scientific excellence and research capacity of VSB. 4. Increase the capacity of VSB for participation in future high-quality research activities and innovation in thermal energy in Central Europe. 5. Increase the interaction with and between the main players in the innovation process in Czech Republic for developing and exploiting geothermal energy. 6. Widen the visibility of VSB as a centre of excellence for thermal energy. 7. Engage with the public and citizens and young people on science related to thermal energy.

Wind energy plants are increasingly becoming critical parts of electrical infrastructure around the world. Despite major technological advancements over the past decade, an estimated 5.500 wind turbine blades fail each year, resulting in long periods of unexpected downtime and repair costs. At eologix sensor technologies gmbh, we are developing an advanced system called eolACC that uses wireless accelerometers to detect damage to blades before they fail. The patented sensor technology is thin and flexible, allowing it to be easily applied to virtually any location, even on aerodynamic surfaces of blades. Together with a base station and our software, diagnostics will alert operators of poor blade conditions and thus enhance their ability to plan critical maintenance activities. Additionally, the insight from blade sensors will help operators manage assets more effectively, and make objective decisions about useful lifetimes and operating ranges. eolACC builds off of an ice detection system previously made by eologix by utilizing the same sensor profile, wireless data transmission, and ambient light power system. Initially eolACC will be sold to owners and operators of wind plants, and in the future we will pursue collaboration with large wind turbine manufacturers. The eolACC system will ultimately help wind power plants to operate more efficiently by reducing unexpected downtime. Owners and operators will be able to more effectively plan budgets and maximize the lifetime of their assets.

To achieve a thorough investigation for defect presence on a wind turbine blade, close inspection is required. This implies either trained staff tied with ropes on the blade or dismantling and transferring the blade in a workshop environment. While blade dismantling is scarcely used because it requires very long downtime, human inspection also involve a relatively high delay. A solution to this problem is to utilize specially designed platforms that can reach the blade and implement faster inspections on site. However, current systems are not very agile or cannot reach close enough to the blade in order to use a high quality nondestructive technique. Hence, they are mostly used to carry out mere visual inspections. To deal with the aforementioned challenge, our team will commercialize WInspector. WInspector consists of an agile robotic platform able to climb up the wind turbine tower and deploy an advanced Digital Shearography kit that carries out the inspection of a blade at a depth of up to 50mm. Users of WInspector benefit through early detecting emerging defects unseen in a visual inspection performed by competing solutions, with a significantly lower downtime for the WTB, and free of dangerous human labor. We have tested and validated the capabilities of WInspector in relevant environment and based on feedback received by wind farm operators, including project participant Gamesa and Iberdola (who has supported us in writing for this application), we are now ready to take the next steps and complete product development allowing us to bring WInspector into the market. Our vision is to grow our businesses by €19.88 million in gross sales by 2023 and keep growing at 58.8% annually from 2023 onwards. Through our business growth, we will create 181 new jobs. It is our strong belief that the Fast Track to Innovation Pilot is the ideal financial instrument for us to accelerate the procedures required for commercialization.

Innovations in solar energy conversion are required to meet humanity’s growing energy demand, while reducing reliance on fossil fuels. All solar energy conversion devices harvest light and then separate photoproducts, minimising recombination. Normally charge separation takes place at the surface of nanostructured electrodes, often covered with photosensitiser molecules such as in dye-sensitised solar cells; DSSCs. However, the use solid state architectures made from inorganic materials leads to high processing costs, occasionally the use of toxic materials and an inability to generate a large and significant source of energy due to manufacturing limitations. An alternative is to effect charge separation at electrically polarised soft (immiscible water-oil) interfaces capable of driving charge transfer reactions and easily “dye-sensitised”. Photoproducts can be separated on either side of the soft interface based on their hydrophobicity or hydrophilicity, minimising recombination. SOFT-PHOTOCONVERSION will explore if photoconversion efficiencies at soft interfaces can be improved to become competitive with current photoelectrochemical systems, such as DSSCs. To achieve this goal innovative soft interface functionalisation strategies will be designed. To implement these strategies an integrated platform technology consisting of (photo)electrochemical, spectroscopic, microscopic and surface tension measurement techniques will be developed. This multi-disciplinary approach will allow precise monitoring of morphological changes in photoactive films that enhance activity in terms of optimal kinetics of photoinduced charge transfer. An unprecedented level of electrochemical control over photosensitiser assembly at soft interfaces will be attained, generating photoactive films with unique photophysical properties. Fundamental insights gained may potentially facilitate the emergence of new class of solar conversion devices non-reliant on solid state architectures.

Sistema Eólico Morcillo is a Spanish SME specialized in the development, construction and sales of innovative medium power wind turbine systems. We have developed and patented a disruptive multi-award winning wind turbine technology called INNOWIND. By 2050, the EU-28 aims to achieve CO2 emissions cuts of 80-95% compared to 1990 levels and to achieve a 20% share for renewable energy sources in its overall energy consumption by 2020. This requires a process of "decarbonising" Europe's economy, including the development and deployment of low-carbon technologies. Wind energy and Solar photovoltaic (PV) energy have been the leading sources of low carbon electricity generation in EU since 2011. The installation of wind turbines is characterized by very high construction costs that amortize slowly over the years through the sale of electricity to the grid. The amount of energy produced depends mainly on the nominal power of the installed generator and of the amount of wind that can be used. INNOWIND offers cost-effective mid-power wind turbine farms, with high flexibility in terms of size and area of construction, with low security requirements and no special construction permits required, making implementation in urban areas a possibility. INNOWIND offers for the first time the opportunity to make use of terrain not suitable for conventional wind farming. Furthermore, thanks to the easy scaling of the units from 50kW to 1000kW, it is possible to cater the specific power needs in a wider range of use-cases and scenarios. Other unique selling points include less visual and environmental impacts, safer in case of storm or fire damage,