Storage is becoming one of the most critical assets for modern energy systems. At the same time storage is a very diverse universe of solutions and technologies with very different characteristics. InterSTORE plans to address this complexity by developing an innovative middleware that, while virtualising the storage technology, will simplify its use from the point of view of integration platform thanks to a technology agnostic approach.The middleware will facilitate the integration of storage creating an independence from hardware solutions which are critical from customer perspectives to avoid vendor lock-in solutions. It will also facilitate its use from a monetisation perspective making sure that more investments in storage are enabled. InterSTORE middleware will be released as a full open-source product integrating a set of already available standards and protocols in a coherent and advanced architecture.The new InterSTORE solution will be tested and validated in a laboratory environment with the goal to develop testing software to be adopted in the future for interoperability certification. The middleware solution will also be integrated both in open source and commercial platforms that will be integrated in 4 real life demos to enhance the flexibility platforms and analyze the user acceptance and economic value of the new solution. Moreover, new and legacy systems will be taken into account. InterSTORE also has a strong focus towards impact. The solution will become part of existing commercial platforms ensuring that a real adoption will be deployed beyond the end of the project. The consortium will ensure that software maintenance will continue beyond the end of the project with the support of Linux Foundation Energy and that the work done will be considered by on-going standardization activities. SSH experts will perform an impact analysis to maximize the economic impact adopting innovative approaches to data monetization in the context of data spaces.

The dramatic effects of the climate crisis are calling for a change in the electrical grid paradigm. The market of Energy Storage Systems is now undertaking continuous growth, boosted by the relentless penetration of renewables. In this context, state of the art ESSs still have several limitations mainly due to technological constraints. Technology-dependent reaction times and rigid coupling between energy and power capacity, makes the choice of a specific ESS for different use cases very cumbersome and seldom optimal from both the technical and economic point of view. SMHYLES project proposes novel sustainable Hybrid Energy Storage Systems (HESSs) based on the combination of two low-CRM storage technologies, one with long duration capacity and one with very high-power density, providing ultra-fast ancillary services, managed in a combined control by smart EMSs. The projects comprehend the design, construction, deployment and demonstration of an Aqueous-based HESS (AHESS) and a Salt-based HESS (SHESS) as well as a storage duration expansion. Three demo sites in Portugal and Germany cover islanded grid, industrial microgrid, provision of grid services and EV charging use cases. Novel solutions for electrolyte recycling are also scaled up to industrially relevant size. The project will finalize techno-economic analyses to evaluate market segments for HESSs commercialization and deal with life cycle assessment along the whole design process. Digital twins are developed to support the optimal design of HESSs components and systems, define the strategies for HESSs real time management, investigate the business potential of SMHYLES solutions for specific use cases and countries, and support and test the energy management systems of the developed hybrid storage technologies. With high technological and economical advancements, SMHYLES will unlock novel flexible and multi-purpose energy storage solutions and ensure a remarkable impact on the European energy market.

PROBONO brings together a European multidisciplinary consortium of 47 partners, construction and consulting entities, public asset service managers, municipalities, technology solution providers and experts, to turn the six European districts (PROBONO´s Living Labs) into Green Building Neighborhoods (GBN), with positive energy balance and zero carbon emissions: two large-scale demonstrators (Madrid and Dublin) and four living labs representing business/owner promoters of the green buildings and neighborhoods’ transition (Porto, Brussels, Aarhus, Prague). PROBONO will provide strong examples of how GBN's technological and social innovations can be applied, with a vision focused on building infrastructure and a renewed focus on people and sustainability, taking full advantage of digitalization and smart technologies for the benefit of society. The adoption of the PROBONO approach and innovations will be proposed through a range of participatory methods that promote stakeholders (including citizens) partaking in co-designing and co-delivering a sustainable GBN. PROBONO will provide GBN Strategic Planning Tools in spatial, economic, technical, environmental regulatory, and social context aligned with city and urban masterplans and policy frameworks. PROBONO will create evidence-based policy recommendations, standardization actions, and robust adoption and commercialization strategies supported by a capacity-building program and a European Alliance of GBN Innovation Clusters. PROBONO will provide a GBN Digital Twin (DT) implemented across the LLs as a virtual representation of associated GBN including operational assets that implicate environmental and efficiency KPI. A cloud-based decision support-planning tool will be created to develop an optimized design for carbon-neutral energy GBN systems incorporating PROBONO innovative solutions on GBN demand and response dynamics. The technological developments will include metering different utilities with electricity, gas, warm energy, cold energy, and water linked to Smart IoT gateway and Energy Optimisation middleware, all this combined with geothermal, PV, micro-turbines, efficient HVAC technologies, green roofs, custom insulation, and GB energy optimization, efficient energy storage and integrating EV charging value chain. To enhance wide-scale adoption and standard creation, PROBONO will contribute with evidence-based policy recommendations, standardization actions, and robust adoption and commercialization strategies.

The European Commission’s Long-Term Strategy describes a number of pathways that reach between 80% and 100% decarbonisation levels. In every pathway a high level of direct and indirect electrification is envisaged, supported by a large-scale deployment of RES. The European power system has to address the residual load variability, on all timescales: from frequency response to inter-year flexibility. The main candidate solutions to provide flexibility are networks, demand-response, dispatchable and flexible power generation technologies, and energy storage. The appropriate deployment of innovative energy storage technologies is of primary importance for the clean energy transition. Sustainability and circular economy approach for storage innovations will minimize the environmental footprint and enhance the overarching efforts for achieving the European Green Deal targets. SINNOGENES project aims to develop the Storage INNOvations (SINNO) energy toolkit, a complete framework of methodologies, tools and technologies that will enable the grid integration of innovative storage solutions beyond the state-of-the art, while demonstrating sustainability, technical performance, lifetime, non-dependency on location geographical particularities and cost. It will develop successful energy storage business cases and systems and deploy them in innovative and 'green' energy systems at different scales and timeframes. SINNOGENES will target the effective integration of innovative energy storage systems and value chains at the interface of renewable energies and specific demand sectors, while ensuring the compatibility of systems and standards of distributed energy storage for participation in flexibility markets. Six pilot projects will take place in Portugal, Spain, Germany, Greece and Switzerland while a detailed scalability and replicability analysis will prove the wide impact of SINNOGENES project innovations at pan European level.