The iFLEX project aims at empowering the consumers by making it as easy as possible for them to participate in demand response. A core concept of the project is the iFLEX Assistant, a novel software agent that acts between consumer(s), and their energy systems, various stakeholders and The iFLEX project aims at empowering the consumers by making it as easy as possible for them to participate in demand response. A core concept of the project is the iFLEX Assistant, a novel software agent that acts between consumer(s), and their energy systems, various stakeholders and external systems helping them to achieve mutual benefits through local energy management and DR. The iFLEX Assistants are designed to provide a common approach to enhance user experience, level of automation and personalization in a wide variety of DR and energy services. Because of different requirements of these services, the project provides a common software framework (i.e., iFLEX Framework) for developing application-specific iFLEX Assistants that are customized for the needs of particular service(s). The focus is especially on households and DR for supporting high penetration of renewables. In addition, there is a need for effective incentives and market structures that encourage consumers to invest in these innovative DR solutions. To this end, the iFLEX Assistants are customizable for different incentive and market mechanisms to allow exploitation of the solution in different countries and climatic regions, as well as, to enable A/B testing of different incentive and user engagement mechanisms with real-users. Although the focus is on electricity, the iFLEX project targets to overcome the current silo-approaches and provide holistic energy management that optimizes across various energy vectors. Co-creation with end-users is inherent in different project phases and coordinated by consumer organisation in the consortium. iFlex validation is carried out with field pilots in three climatic regions.

EU countries have drawn up strategies reflected in their National Energy Efficiency Action Plans that include provision of an overview of the country's national building stock, identification of key policies that the country intends to use to stimulate renovations and provision of an estimate of the expected energy savings that will result from renovations. Despite the increase in the use of energy and the evident environmental benefits of having more share of renewable energy sources (RES) in buildings, the adoption of both energy efficiency measures and RES is highly influenced by its cost and the impact on occupants’ comfort. The real implementation of actions to reduce energy consumption in buildings is confronted with the complexity of managing their internal energy systems, the overall target of cost savings and the respect of the levels of comfort expected by the buildings occupants. The BIGG project aims at demonstrating the application of big data technologies and data analytic techniques for the complete buildings life-cycle of more than 4000 buildings in 6 large-scale pilot test-beds, achieved by: 1) The Open Source BIGG Data Reference Architecture 4 Buildings for collection/funneling, processing and exchanging data from different sources (smart-meters, sensors, BMS, existing data sets); 2) An interoperable buildings data specification, BIGG Standard Data Model 4 Buildings, based on the combination of elements from existing frameworks and EC directives, such as SAREF, INSPIRE, BIM, EPCHub that will be enhanced to reach full interoperability of building data; 3) An extensible, open, cloud-based BIGG Data Analytics Toolbox of service modules for batch and real-time analytics that supports a wide range of services, new business models and support reliable and effective policy-making. These solutions will be deployed and tested cross pilot and country validation of at least two business scenarios in Spain and Greece.

SCO2OP-TES project aims to develop and validate up to TRL5 in UNIGE-TP lab the next generation of Power-to-heat-to-power (P2H2P) energy storage able to guarantee long duration and large scale energy storage to facilitate bulky RES integration in EU energy systems as well as to enhance fossil based power plants flexibilization and facilitate grid integration of EU industries. SCO2OP-TES promotes indeed a new paradigm where industrial WH (even at low temperature like 150-200°C) can be used not only to produce power via ORC or sCO2 Cycles, but to operate P2H2P storage systems more efficiently and grid flexibly. The consortium is composed by innovative SMEs and acknowledged EU RTOs, motivated to realize the first sCO2 PTES pilot plant in Europe. Leveraging experiences from previous EU Funded projects (SHARP-sCO2, CO2OLHEAT, SOLARSCO2OL etc.) as well as from acknowledged RTOs (UNIGE, CVR, KTH, POLIMI, CERTH, UoB) and industrial partners (EDPP, EDP-NEW, HERON,), SCO2OP-TES the potential of “sCO2 BASED CARNOT BATTERIES” based on innovative Molten Salt TES (KYOTO, RPOW) and sCO2 HEXs (AL) and turbomachinery (ENOGIA, SIT) targeting to assess the potential benefit of valorising local WH to optimize round-trip-efficiency and reduce TES size/CAPEX while optimizing local grid/power plant flexibility needs. Via its pilot and replication campaign (involving further CCGTs in Greece and Portugal), SCO2OP-TES promotes the role of P2H2P as key enabling long duration/large scale energy storage technology to boost RES integration in EU energy systems. PC-TECO will develop and validate key enabling technologies (HEXs, turbomachinery, TES) and modelling approaches (Dynamics, thermoeconomic, grid flexibility potential assessment) to make EU leader in the field of P2H2P solutions, boosting WH Recovery as well as fostering a storage solution based on rotating-machine and therefore more grid flexible and environmentally friendly if compared to battery or power-to-H2 storage solutions.

InterConnect envisages to contribute for the democratization of efficient energy management, through a flexible and interoperable ecosystem where demand side flexibility can be soundly integrated with effective benefits to end-users. In fact, over the last few years several projects and technology providers have come up with solutions that allow every energy user to have awareness and control over his appliances, but there has always been a major issue with interoperability. End-users should be able to choose and change their technology providers, without having to replace their installation, every time they feel this need and still be able to adopt sustainable behaviour and benefit from technological advances. In the energy sector, a steep move towards digital is occurring and becoming tremendously user-centric and market-driven. The system dimension is significant, as the number of energy service providers is increasing thanks to favourable regulatory environment and technology advancements for monitoring and control. This is the reason why this consortium integrates relevant partners from all the representative stakeholders in this new energy paradigm. Specific competences in ICT, IoT, energy, data science, software, were included and the full value chain, from R&D institutions, manufacturers, DSO, retailers, IT providers, and energy users is represented. To guarantee a higher Europe-wide impact, several relevant associations related with ICT and energy are also involved. To achieve a significant dimension, 7 large scale pilots, in different countries and with different end-users, are foreseen to guarantee representativeness and dimension in terms of number of appliances and services. The overarching objective of these pilots is to demonstrate a real digital market environment over electrical systems with significant amounts of DSF, reducing operational and investment costs that will benefit energy end-users and help EU achieve its energy efficiency objectives.