The future wind turbines will require flexible and economically affordable PDPs to obtain reliable and validated new concepts for bigger wind turbines or already installed turbines. One of the most critical components that have a high contribution to wind farms OpEx costs are the bearings (selected Case Studies 1 and 3 during INNTERESTING) and gearboxes (selected Case Study 2 during INNTERESTING). Since both components transfer high loads and have high failure rates, they are considered as critical components inside the wind turbine. Although the percentage of the total Capex cost of bearings (2% ) is not as high as other structures (e.g. blades 22% and gearbox 13%) , their role is not insignificant.However, the role of bearings and gears in the OpEx is higher due to the major impact of early. The fatigue requirements that must be assured for the lifetime is a key factor to reduce the negative effect of reparations. New wind energy key concepts and uses which are faster to commercialisation have been prioritised: INNTERESTING project aims to accelerate wind energy technology development and increase lifetime extension of wind turbine components by developing a disruptive methodology to demonstrate reliability of larger wind turbine critical components without the need of building larger test-benches in the future by overcoming size dependent issues during design process and testing. In this matter, INNTERESTING project pursues the development of innovative virtual and hybrid testing methods for prototype validation of pitch bearing and gearboxes components (Selected Study Cases Components). The new methodology will help saving time and money during the product development process (PDP) by integrating virtual testing and hybrid testing: including innovative non-physical and scaled/simplified physical testing. In comparison with current methodologies INNTERESTING will reduce considerable environmental and economic impacts, and improve social acceptance.

ATELIER is a smart city project that demonstrates Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) within 8 European cities with sustainability and carbon neutrality as guiding ambitions. Amsterdam and Bilbao are the Lighthouse cities that will generate an energy surplus of 1340 MWh of primary energy, prevent 1,7 kt of CO2- and 23 t of NOx-emissions, and invest 156 mln Euros to realise their PEDs. Together with district users, ATELIER will showcase innovative solutions that integrate buildings with smart mobility and energy technologies to create a surplus of energy and balance the local energy system. Bratislava, Budapest, Copenhagen, Krakow, Matosinhos, and Riga are the Fellow cities that will replicate and adapt successful solutions. All cities will establish a local PED Innovation Atelier to co-produce locally embedded, smart urban solutions. In the ateliers, the local innovation ecosystem (authorities, industries, knowledge institutes, citizens) is strengthened, enhancing embeddedness and removing any obstacles (legal, financial, social, etc.) for implementation of the smart solutions. The Innovation Ateliers are designed to be self-sustaining and to live on after the project has ended. The ateliers are engines for upscaling solutions within the ATELIER-cities and replication to other EU-cities. ATELIER integrates a high degree of citizen engagement throughout the project, by actively involving local residents (>9000), local initiatives, and energy communities in activities to align technical solutions with citizens’ objectives and behaviour. Each of the cities will develop a City Vision 2050 that creates the roadmap for upscaling the solutions in the long term. ATELIER has the ambition to pave the way for “energy positive cities” in Europe. All ATELIER activities will be monitored (socially and technically), and lessons learned are systematically drawn and disseminated to relevant SET-plan groups, city networks, and innovation forums.

The ongoing energy system digitization is making available an enormous amount of data, paving the way for data sharing-enabled cross-value chain services, which may contribute to system-level increased efficiency and hence facilitate the energy transition. However data sharing in the energy sector is lagging behind, mainly due to lack of trust, privacy breaches risk and business models immaturity. In that respect ENERSHARE will a) deliver a Reference Architecture for a European Energy Data Space, which hybridizes SGAM with IDSA and GAIA-X architectures, by bringing data value chain perspective into the energy one b) evolve interoperability, trust, data value and governance building blocks to TRL 6-7 IDSA-compliant ones, adapt them to energy sector, and deploy: 1) across-energy and cross-sector data enhancement technology enablers and standardizable interfaces and open APIs by leveraging on open Standards (e.g. ETSI Context Broker) and ontologies (e.g. SAREF 2) trust-related connectors, to ensure privacy, confidentiality, cybersecurity-preserving trust, sovereignty and full control of data 3) Blockchain/Smart contract-enriched marketplace for data versus energy assets/services coordination, sharing, exchange, and beyond financial compensation 4) cross-value chain value-added services and Digital Twins, by leveraging on privacy-preserving federated learning c) integrate and deploy them within a Reference Implementation of a European Energy Data Space, which will be demonstrated along 7 pilots and 11 intra-electricity, intra-energy and beyond energy use cases d) co-design SSH-based consumer-centric business models for energy data sharing enabling data beyond-financial value creation and spreading along value chain d) prepare the ground for the European Energy Data Space setup, through alignment with EU-level relevant initiatives (GAIA-X, IDSA, BDVA, ETIP SNET, BRIDGE), contributing to Data Space standardization and boosting a level playing field for data sharing.

Existing heavily industrialized areas are currently incapable of adopting large-scale industrial symbioses in terms of shared technology/infrastructure use, waste integration, energy and material utilization, as well as expanding through surrounding ecosystems in an inclusive manner for the society despite many of the EU's key strategic priorities in sustainable regional development. Within this context, IS2H4C proposes an ambitious and efficient innovation and action workplan to develop several solutions for the development of Hubs for Circularity (H4C) in diverse industrial areas of process industry surrounded by rural and/or urban settings in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Turkey. The workplan is shaped by development and deployment of most innovative sustainable technologies and infrastructure integration in four demo hubs and is supported by ground-breaking research on societal, governmental, and business innovation for H4C. IS2H4C scales up industrial areas to H4C via implementing systemic change and integrating the surrounding ecosystems to industrial areas. The project implements a digital collaboration platform to manage the resource, infrastructure and information-sharing within H4C via embedding of decision-support modules in the platform. IS2H4C has the ambition of reducing the energy use, waste emissions, and carbon emissions by at least 10%, 20%, and 30% respectively. IS2H4C will contribute to pave the path towards the development of H4C based on the circularity and resilience requirements of existing and future industrial zones and their surrounding ecosystems by prioritizing resource efficiency, maximizing use of renewable energy, prevention of waste, and promoting industrial/urban/rural symbiosis via reuse and recycling of unavoidable solid, liquid, and gas waste streams. All in all, IS2H4C’s biggest ambition is to promote H4C as Europe’s future sustainable regional development models.