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PV Impact will try out a variety of approaches to stimulate the private sector to spend more on PV research, development and innovation in Europe. The part of the project will focus on inviting companies to matchmaking events so they can make new connections and find partners with whom to work on their plans. The project will also target two specific industrial companies: one, ENEL Green Power, will try to make progress on the Implementation Plan by coordinating the many different PV actors in Italy; the other, Photowatt, will work mostly privately but tap the consortium's expertise and those of scientists whom it will select to help it make the right strategic technical choices to be a serious competitor in PV manufacturing. Another important part of the project is to monitor progress in PV. Data will be collected on public spending in the EU, on private spending, on the kinds of projects being funded and on the overall performance of PV technology. Forecasts for future spending will be made according to various scenarios. The project will track whether improvements in the performance of technology are keeping pace with expectations. It will make recommendations to European funding authorities on how they can play their part in putting European PV technology back the top of the class if it is falling behind.

The overall objective of WinWind is to enhance the socially inclusive and environmentally sound market uptake of wind energy by increasing its social acceptance in 'wind energy scarce regions' (WESR). The specific objectives are: screening, analysing, discussing, replicating, testing & disseminating feasible solutions for increasing social acceptance and thereby the uptake of wind energy. The proposal considers from a multidisciplinary perspective the case of WESR in DE, ES, IT, LV, PL and NO. These selected countries represent a variety of realities ranging from large (but with WESR) to very scarce wind energy penetration. WinWind analyses regional and local communities´ specificities, socioeconomic, spatial & environmental characteristics and the reasons for slow market deployment in the selected target regions. Best practices to overcome the identified obstacles are assessed and – where feasible – transferred. The operational tasks are taken up by national/regional desks consisting of the project partners, market actors and stakeholders in each country. The project´s objectives will be reached by: i) analysing the inhibiting and driving factors for acceptance, ii) developing a taxonomy of barriers to identify similarities and differences in development patterns , iii) carrying out stakeholder dialogues in all participating regions, iv) developing acceptance-promoting measures that are transferable to specific local, regional and national contexts, and v) transferring feasible best practice solutions via learning labs. WinWind develops concrete solutions. The activities focus on novel informal/voluntary procedural participation of communities, direct and indirect financial participation & benefit sharing. Finally, policy lessons with validity across Europe are drawn and recommendations proposed. Already 62 stakeholders and market actors provided letters of support showing their commitment in supporting the WindWind activities and in implementing useful results.

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.

URBAN LEARNING gathers capitals and other large cities across Europe facing the common challenge of considerable population growth while being committed to significantly reduce fossil energy consumption and CO2 emissions. E.g. Stockholm grew by more than 12.000 people / a (1.5%); in the next 10 years Vienna has to build for 200.000 new people. Efficient and effective planning processes will be crucial for climbing this mountain. Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Amsterdam/Zaanstad, Warsaw and Zagreb aim to enhance the capacity of their local authorities on integrative urban energy planning, as response to new challenges from EU EPBD and RES directives as well as to changes of technologies and market conditions and the pressure to provide sufficient, affordable homes. The focus is put on the governance processes related to the (re-)development of concrete sites. While some cities already started ambitious urban development projects, the institutionalisation of these experiences is missing - despite awareness and willingness, due to lack of knowledge, lack of time and the need for collaboration across departments, which is not a common practice in many administrations in Europe. External stimulus is needed to overcome these barriers, and to address these issues collectively with external key stakeholders, such as DNOs and energy suppliers, and across cities. Focus will be on multi-disciplinary learning – concentrating on innovative technological solutions, instruments and tools as well as on innovative governance elements - and to capitalise this learning to institutionalise integrative urban energy planning. Improving the governance processes is expected to have significant energy impacts on homes and workplaces to be built and refurbished for over 3 million more people in the participating cities in the next 20 years: more than 1.700 GWh/a of energy savings and over 2.000 GWh/a renewable energy produced. Special emphasis is put on knowledge transfer to 150 more cities.

SUPER PV is pursuing an ambitious bus realistic goal for innovative PV system cost reduction and consequently significant LCOE reduction (26%-37%) by adopting hybrid approach combining technological innovations and Data Management methods along the PV value chain. To achieve that, key actions will be implemented at three main levels within the PV value chain: PV module innovation level, power electronics innovation level and system integration level. To ensure fast uptake of the project results by industry, state of the art modules (c-Si and flexible CIGS) and power electronics products were utilised for adopting innovations developed by research centres. For cost reduction in system integration and operation, Digitalization and Data Management solutions based on Industry 4.0 approach will be adopted following successful utilization of Building Information Modelling approach in the construction sector. Selected for uptake innovations will be compatible with existing manufacturing technological processes thus reducing impact on Cost of Ownership and ensuring attractiveness of proposed technologies for PV manufacturers. Prototype SUPER PV systems will be produced in industrial environments and tested in different (including harsh) climate conditions to evaluate cost efficiency and demonstrate competitiveness of the proposed solutions. On the basis of test results, business cases for technologies under consideration will be performed, plans for production and market replication will be prepared. Project activities will be complemented by wide training and dissemination campaign ensuring highest visibility and social impact of the project activities. By delivering to the market SUPERior PV products, the project will have twofold impact on EU PV sector: 1. Will create conditions for accelerated large scale deployment of PV in Europe for both utility (non-urban) and residential (urban) scenarios and 2. Will help EU PV businesses to regain leadership on world market.

Wind power plays a crucial role in Europe’s strategy towards a zero-carbon, clean energy-powered economy. While efforts have primarily focused on the development of wind turbine technology, it starts to become evident that the planning associated with the end-of-service life of these equipment has been vastly neglected. Rotor blades are a particularly challenging component, as there is uncertainty about how to get rid of them properly and safely. Furthermore, their sheer huge size imposes important constraints on the trucking requirements for their transportation, which translates in significant costs for decommissioning and disposal. EcoBlade presents a disruptive concept which tackles the cumbersome transportation of decommissioned large size rotor blades. Our mobile separation platform relies on a modular system optimized for blade shredding and material separation. It also opens the path towards profitable and economically sustainable value chains aiming at the revalorization of the disposed blade material. Since existing experience on blades’ decommissioning is still limited, disposal best practices are still to be defined. Therefore, the development of our scalable platform currently holds important economic risks, given the uncertainty on market acceptance. For this reason, Frandsen Industri firmly believes that a two-phase approach under EU-funding is the ideal scenario, in order to initially assess the market for concept feasibility before initiating the innovation project. Ecoblade will serve as a key enabler for future decommissioning of rotor blades, allowing to save more than 60 M€ in transportation costs for the disposed blades during the 2020-2030 period. Moreover, the successful implementation of EcoBlade will also significantly enhance the profitability of Frandsen Industri, as its successful implementation would return an expected turnover of nearly €5 million, 5 years post-project, corresponding to over €1.6 million profit to our company.

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

Energy efficiency lies at the very core of policy interventions for energy security, energy poverty and climate change, while its promoted by technological innovations and investments. However, it seems that these technologies are not adopted by consumers at least to the extent that the assumption of rational behavior would predict. This energy efficiency gap, the difference between expected and realized energy consumption, costs to national economies both in terms of monetary values and emissions. Significant role in mitigating this issue is the exploration of the drivers of individual behavior. There is tremendous opportunity and need for policy-relevant research that utilizes randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental techniques to estimate the returns to energy efficiency investments and the adoption level of energy efficiency programs. EVIDENT proposes several different case studies under the framework of randomized control trials (RCTs) and surveys in order to define the main drivers of individuals’ decision making and to establish new relationships between energy consumption and other fields such as financial literacy. A large number of participants, well stratified samples, innovative design of experiments and state of-the-art econometric models that will be employed in EVIDENT and will contribute in robust estimates and subsequent policy measures for effective policy interventions.