The wind energy sector continues growing rapidly even under the pandemic, as an estimated 93GW wind capacity was installed in 2020 globally. After installation, wind turbines are expected to run around 20-25years, during which O&M (operation and maintenance) becomes crucial in maximising the economic and environmental benefits of wind assets. This project aims to develop a complete solution for robotic based inspection and repair of wind turbine blades (WTBs), both onshore and offshore. Firstly, we will integrate thermography and shearography with laser heating, so that advanced lock-in techniques will be achieved for in-situ inspection of both surface and subsurface defects within WTBs. (Current techniques including drone-based are limited to surface defects only). Secondly, a compact and efficient robotic deployment system will be developed which will hold the inspection unit and a robotic repair arm. The robotic system will be operated by engineers working on ground (for onshore wind farms) or on a vessel (for offshore wind farms). When defects are detected and deemed reparable, the repair arm of the whole system will be activated to rapidly repair the faulty area of composite components by resistance welding for joining and/or disassembly. Comparing to the traditional adhesively bonding for repair, the proposed resistance welding with optimised processing would significantly reduce the curing cycles/time with much fewer preparation for surface treatment steps while it will be more easily designed to integrate with robotic arm. The whole system will be operated remotely by engineers working on ground or on a vessel without risking their lives working in the sky on WTBs. Field trials on wind towers will be conducted to validate the system.

Recognising that current storage solutions are unable to stabilize enough the intermittent renewable energy production, new long term energy storage solutions are becoming mandatory. Current long-term energy storage is mainly provided by Pumped-Storage Hydroelectricity (PSH). Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) has appeared for decades as a credible alternative but its poor energy efficiency, the need of fossil fuels and the use of existing underground cavities as storage reservoirs have limited its development. Variations to CAES have shown low efficiency, losing a big percentage of energy as heat and mechanical losses. Since the 2010s, there is a strong revival of scientific and industrial interest on CAES, led by China and the European Union (EU). For the EU, leading the new generation of high-efficient, low climate-impact and long-term energy storage research, is key to increase its energy independency. In this context, the main objective of Air4NRG is the development of an innovative, efficient (over 70% RTE), long- term, and sustainable CAES prototype, which can enhance renewable energy availability and offers robustness and safety while increasing cost effectiveness and improving the environmental footprint. At the same time, it will promote innovation and competitiveness in the European energy storage industry, while prioritizing the principles of circular economy and environmental sustainability. Another key factor of the solution is the integrability to the electrical grid system and their intelligent EMS, which will be proven by the end of the project through end user integration activities (TRL5). The project will result in two prototypes: one of them will be a plug and play system fitting into a standard 40ft container with an over ten- hours storage duration, while the other will be a larger-scale system of 200kW with the same duration of storage. The developed system is a rare material-free solution with simple industrial infrastructure needs, allowing its full development within the EU, strengthening Europes position in the energy storage system sector.

The DOMINOES project aims to enable the discovery and development of new demand response, aggregation, grid management and peer-to-peer trading services by designing, developing and validating a transparent and scalable local energy market solution. The market can be leveraged to share local value, increase renewable energy accessibility and make better use of local grids by Distribution System Operators (DSO), Prosumers/Consumers, Energy Retailers and other key stakeholders. The project will show how DSOs can dynamically and actively manage grid balance in the emerging future where microgrids, ultra-distributed generation and energy independent communities will be prevalent. Best value will only emerge if these resources and stakeholders can be connected to both DSO activities and the centralized market mechanism. The project will establish solutions for this challenge by addressing the following steps: 1. Design and develop a local energy market architecture 2. Develop and demonstrate ICT components enabling the local market concept 3. Develop and demonstrate balancing and demand response services supporting the local markets 4. Design and validate local market enabled business models 5. Analyze and develop solutions for secure data handling related to local market enabled transactions With these steps, the DOMINOES project is able to address all the requirements of the LCE-01-2017 call. The project will deliver 1. new business models for demand response and virtual power plant (VPP) operations; 2. tools and technology validation for demand response services; 3. services based on smart metering; 4. methods to utilize VPPs and microgrids as active balancing assets; 5. secure data handling procedures in local markets. These results will be validated in three validation sites in Portugal and Finland. A DSO environment in Évora (Portugal), a VPP site distributed across bank branches in Portugal and a microgrid site in Lappeenranta (Finland).

Hydrogen Offshore Production for Europe (HOPE) intents to pave the way for the deployment of large-scale offshore hydrogen production. To this aim, HOPE will design, build and operate the first offshore hydrogen production demonstrator of 10MW by 2025 in an offshore test zone near the port of Oostende in Belgium. The two-years demonstration of a mid-scale concept on a retrofitted jack-up barge will prove the technical and commercial sustainability of renewable offshore hydrogen production, export by pipelines and supply to end-clients onshore. It will also provide an extensive experience to assess the feasibility of 300MW and 500MW offshore concepts. The experience gathered by the consortium members and the maturity levels reached at the end of the project will enable the deployment of commercial large-scale solutions as soon as 2028. HOPE gathers a unique consortium of European players with cutting-edge expertise across the whole hydrogen value chain: an offshore wind power developer, a renewable hydrogen producer, an electrolyser manufacturer, a desalination solutions manufacturer, an offshore hydrogen pipes manufacturer, a research centre, a regional development agency, a strategic consultancy and a renewables communication agency. HOPE will produce a large range of exploitable results including not only detailed designs of replicable offshore hydrogen technologies, operational data and resulting analyses from a first-of-a-kind project but also pre-feasibility studies and techno-economic assessments of two large-scale concepts. Through an ambitious dissemination and exploitation plan, the consortium intends to accelerate the deployment of large-scale offshore hydrogen solutions to contribute to reach the 10 Mt of clean hydrogen produced in Europe by 2030 to decarbonize the European economy and reach our climate goals.

The ORION vision is to strengthen the European leadership in science and technology and accelerate the twin energy transition of the energy value chain stakeholders with a quintuple-helix model by delivering a modular toolbox of digital breakthrough components, by validating these components in the unique use cases of hydro, solar, and wave energy operations across four continents, and by integrating and presenting these novelties in a human-centric Digital Twin applications to enable a higher-degree of digitalisation of relevant operational and business processes, increase the renewables share in the electricity grid globally, and reduce fossil fuels consumption in the context of an increased demand for energy resources and uncertain geopolitical and climate conditions in the long term. The developed digital components will help the stakeholders to tackle different limitations of the energy value chain with the goal to make energy more sustainable, affordable, and safer and, thus, solve pressing prioritised political, business, and societal problems. The human-centric Digital Twin will empower better informed decision-making of the stakeholders including policy makers allowing them to share insights in a collaborative and virtual environment. The Digital Twin will help to address the energy stakeholders needs in a comprehensive manner and will include the latest knowledge and best practices from the existing EU platforms, e.g., ENERSHARE, GAIA-X, and FIWARE. Top-level research and innovation entities from 8 countries (France, Germany, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Brazil, Canada, and Cape Verde) spanned across 4 continents will jointly contribute to high impact R&I, implement testing and validation activities in five unique use cases, contribute to a better education output, and develop new multidisciplinary knowledge to be translated into solutions, services, and products to be applied across the energy value-chains globally.