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.

Efficient and effective use of offshore renewables is pivotal in the transition of the EU to become a net-zero economy in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. EU-SCORES will unlock the large-scale potential of the roll-out of offshore renewable energy in multi-source parks across different European sea basins through two highly comprehensive and impactful demonstrations: (1) An offshore solar PV system in Belgium co-located with a bottom fixed windfarm and; (2) A wave energy array in Portugal co-located with a floating wind farm. The multi-source demonstrations in EU-SCORES will showcase the benefits of a continuous power output harnessing the complementarity between wind, sun and waves as it leads to a more resilient and stable power system, higher capacity factors and a lower total cost per MWh. These aspects will also improve the business case for the production of green hydrogen within these parks. The full-scale demonstrations will prove how the increased power output and capacity installed per km2 will reduce the amount of marine space needed, thereby leaving more space for aquaculture, fisheries, shipping routes and environmentally protected zones. Additional benefits attained by co-using critical electrical infrastructures and exploring advanced operation and maintenance methodologies supported by innovative autonomous systems will further lower the costs per MWh. The involvement of major project developers and utility companies (EDP, EGP, SBE, RWE, EnBW, Eneco, OceanWinds, and Parkwind) will ensure an accelerated path towards commercialisation of these innovative parks. Altogether, through a highly competent, skilled and motivated consortium EU-SCORES will pave the way for bankable multi-source parks including wind, wave and floating solar systems across different European sea basins by 2025, thereby supporting the stability and resilience of the European energy system, while considering sustainability, local stakeholders and existing ecosystems.

SYSCHEMIQ will demonstrate how to migrate to a circular urban-industrial cross-border district, i.e. the CHEMELOT Circular Hub (CCH) in the Trilateral Euregio of NL, BE and DE. A Circular Economy Action Plan and a (4BEUR) Investment Agenda (2020-2030) are available. Stakeholder involvement schemes are in place, to allow governance within an ecosystem (Regional Government, Municipality, Industries, Educational and Research Institutes, Utilities and Cluster Management): a new way of working to overcome key-bottlenecks. Investment decisions have been made to set up mechanical recycling (4kT/a) and a 150 M€ semi-industrial (18kT/a) chemical pilot recycling plant, to run demos with optimised real-life Mixed Plastic Waste (MPW) streams. We will demo systemic solutions 1) a novel Dual-Track multistakeholder governance model, underpinned by the recently developed Plastic Recycling Impact Scenario: PRISM model (TRL6), and CIMS digital-twin 2) the CCH circular governance model (TRL6), 3) community-based innovation schemes; a Circular City Lab, citizens incentives schemes, incubator and novel skills development and innovation programmes with students (vocational, professional and academic) in a Circular Learning Lab (CHILL), 4) new plastic waste collection, sorting standards/protocols and technologies (e.g. prototype sorting line TRL6) for alignment of material flows in the value chain, 5) new Design rules (TRL 5) for plastic packaging products favouring mechanical and chemical recycling. Considering circa 1.1 Mt of MPW in NL and 30 Mt in EU, scenario calculations promise huge savings of 11.4 Mt CO2 eq./a and 190 kT/a virgin polyolefins. Business modelling and upscaling study will prepare investments in a 100-400 kT/a full-scale recycling facility. A structured Twinning programme with at least 5 selected regions (incl. Flanders and Lombardy), will foster replication, with the support of EU Platform organisations (ECRN, PRE) and in collaboration with the CCRI.

The goal of the COASTAL project is to formulate and evaluate business solutions and policy recommendations aimed at improving the coastal-rural synergy to foster rural and coastal development while preserving the environment. Rural development in the EU is increasingly affected by changing market developments, decreasing population densities, urban sprawl, lack of employment, desertification and other environmental, economic and social pressures. On the other hand, coastal areas provide interesting business opportunities but are also influenced by economic activities in the hinterland. Multi-Actor Approaches will be combined with System Dynamics to analyse the environmental, economic, and social interactions of rural and coastal areas in a holistic manner. The underlying feedback structures governing the dynamics, vulnerabilities, limitations, and business opportunities of the land-sea system will be identified and analysed, taking into consideration the regulatory frameworks, stakeholder priorities and social-economic conditions at the local, regional and macro-regional scale levels. Multi-Actor Labs using qualitative and quantitative tools will be set up to support the co-creation exchanges between scientific experts, stakeholders, business entrepreneurs, sector- and administrative representatives. The project will be structured around six closely interacting work packages with six complementary case studies in Sweden, Belgium, France, Spain, Greece and Romania.

We are in the middle of an energy transition when it comes to reaching Europe’s Green Deal challenges by 2050, providing a great opportunity for renewable energy to strive for more established, more innovative and more embedded initiatives such as the Centres of Vocational Excellence. In the European Green Deal it is stated that: “Renewable energy sources will have an essential role. Increasing offshore wind production will be essential, building on regional cooperation between Member States.The EU goal of climate neutrality by 2050 requires 25 times increase in offshore wind installed capacity. Already in the next 10 years the volume of offshore wind in Europe needs to rise from 25 GW to over 110 GW. This given fact will have huge on the requirements for skilled personnel, needs for harmonization and need for international cooperation. For the planning & installation phase of an offshore wind farm EnBW estimates 25 Full Time Employees (FTE) per MW installed. If Europe have 110 GW installed by 2030, this means 85.000 MW new installed capacity the next 9 years, which means more than 2 million new FTE in the planning & installation phase. For Operation & Maintenance EnBW estimates 1.2 FTE/MW, giving 102 000 new employees working the whole period of operation (25 – 30 years). As we know there will be a considerable shift in the work force due to mobility, the number of trained and reskilled personnel will be even higher. What are the difficulties and possible solutions to this issue:1.While wind power is essential to the climate fight, wind alone will not suffice to meet the United Nations Paris Agreement’s goal of avoiding a 2-degree Celsius rise in global temperature. Decarbonizing all sectors of the economy, including heavy industry and transportation, requires passion, it requires sector coupling of industry, thus cooperation between industry leaders and above all new green skills. 2.Skills obtained at a young age no longer suffice to last an entire career,