BalticSeaH2 will establish the first, largescale interregional hydrogen valley in Europe. BalticSeaH2 will build a main cross-border Hydrogen Valley between Finland and Estonia and connects it with local valleys in different countries surrounding the Baltic Sea. The ultimate goal is to develop an international hydrogen economy and markets that work optimally both from the technical, economic and environmental perspectives across country borders in the Northern Europe, more specifically around the Baltic Sea. The project will develop, scale and demonstrate hydrogen use in production, storage and distribution, and in Use Cases in different sectors from industry, mobility and energy. The learnings from the cross-border build-up of a hydrogen economy will be shared with specifically identified Connected Valleys and replicated across borders between them, but furthermore, shared to boost replication and initiate new hydrogen valleys across Europe. The cross border Main Valley is to be located in the region of Southern Finland – Estonia. These regions are already connected with a natural gas pipeline, transmission cable and maritime operations and the Transmission System Operators (TSO) in both countries collaborate actively in the further development of the cross border infrastructures. The cross border nature of the Main Valley makes is possible to develop cross border markets and businesses for green hydrogen production, transport and use from the start, including also development of cross border neighbouring pricing zones for renewable electricity to reach optimized system, market and business designs for an efficient hydrogen economy.

Zero-SWARM is a mission to achieve climate neutral and digitised production via a multidisciplinary, human centric, objective oriented innovative approach resulting in technical solutions for open swarm framework, non-public 5G network, active information continuum and digital twin. At the core, it establishes a unique forum where separately maturing technologies of 5G and cloud-edge continuum, data technologies and analysis (including data spaces and GAIA-X) and operational technology (automation and agility) break their siloes to co-design and co-create through 10 trials. It will showcase key achievements such as smart assembly, sustainable powertrains, improved resilience with remote operation, 5G powered PLC?s for real time distributed control systems, safe and autonomous transport of goods in factory, 5G enabled process aware AGVs, plug & connect 5G for industry, mobile intelligent agents for zero plastic waste, smart maintenance and optimization, remote quality control for zero defect resilient manufacturing. The project includes 3 nodes (north, center and south) with industrial test facilities from previous public/private investments co/creating with reputable industry players. Aligned with the technical activities, Zero-SWARM includes a tailored engagement program towards a wide audience, including collaboration with Digital Innovation Hubs and key initiatives in Europe. In addition, open innovation practices involves industry player as clients of developed technologies via Zero-SWARM community with 400 users and the expression of interest mechanism. It allows them to be the pioneer of the Zero-SWARM technologies, establishing an impact pathway even after the project end. Zero-SWARM puts strong emphasis on developing various learning materials to promote skill development of talented workforces with minimum efforts in prominent twin transformation, which will strongly contribute to build up European leadership in sustainable data driven manufacturing.

FOREMAST R&I activities are structured along 4 ambition Pillars: (P1) Selectable level of automation Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) architecture and interfaces and situational awareness model for interfacing GNC and sensory hardware and processing systems to efficiently solve the control problem unique to IWT. Combined with balanced human-autonomy collaboration (navigation, mooring, cargo handling, propulsion) and safety implications in mixed traffic utilising tailored Galileo/EGNOS services will lead to a Next-generation Remote Control Centre TRL 5 and Small Flexible Automated Zero-emission (SFAZ) autonomy control system TRL 5 protypes. (P2) Zero emission energy management solutions dynamically optimised for prevailing operating conditions. Hybrid Electric and Fuel Cell zero emission solutions will be evaluated against power and energy requirements, lifetime, costs and life-cycle emissions of alternative fuel/energy systems. (P3) Innovative Macro Designs for SFAZ vessels in intramodal & intermodal transport networks reflecting innovations from P1 and P2. Vessel design concepts, verified through simulation, will provide systematic evaluation of SFAZ designs for confined areas and shallow waters, providing an increased operational flexibility in terms of cargo capacity, types, and load units, tied with hydrodynamic and propulsion models and control architectures. (P4) A modelling simulation design and operational optimisation tools (Digital Twining Platform) enables both design and operational measurement and optimisation of Living Lab (LL) solutions, supporting solutions for European coastal and inland or congested urban regions, incorporating if needed third party innovative components, ensuring transferability and sustainability. 2 LLs in Ghent and Caen, that represent coastal and inland congested urban regions, will demonstrate the SFAZ Prototypes integrated through Automated Smart Terminals in optimised logistic networks. A 3rd virtual LL in Galati will demonstrate replicability.

HEDGE-IoT proposes a novel Digital Framework which aims to deploy IoT assets at different levels of the energy system (from behind-the-meter, up to the TSO level), to add intelligence to the edge and cloud layers through advanced AI/ML tools and to bridge the cloud/edge continuum introducing federated applications governed by advanced computational orchestration solutions. The HEDGE-IoT Framework will upgrade the RES-hosting capacity of the energy systems and will unleash a previously untapped flexibility potential. It will increase the resilience of the grid, create new market opportunities and promote advances in IoT standardization, by introducing and managing a plethora of diversified, interoperable energy services over scalable and highly distributed data platforms and infrastructure. The multi-dimensional framework of HEDGE-IoT comprises the following pillars: (a) the Technology Facilitator Pillar will exploit the computational sharing by offloading applications on the grid edge, towards providing a set AI/ML federated learning and swarm computing applications; (b) the Interoperability Pillar, which leverages on leading-edge interoperable architectures, such as the Data Space architectures; (c) the Standardisation Pillar will enable all involved platforms, systems, tools and actors to seamlessly communicate and exchange data in standardized formats using widely used standards, such as SAREF, etc.; (d) the Digital Energy Ecosystem Enabling Pillar will ensure the creation of an ecosystem facilitating the increased integration of RES and characterised by resilience. Liaisons with EU initiatives for IoT and digitalisation will be established (e.g., the AIOTI) and the engagement of stakeholders will be ensured by addressing IoT ethics and cultivating trust among end-users, thus promoting inclusivity. Scalability and replicability studies will be performed and connections with innovators and SMEs will be established through the Open Call mechanism of the project.

ELECTRA demonstrates that electric heating can substitute fossil fuels in the cement, lime, and pulp industries. ELECTRA develops and validates in real life emission-free, electrically heated cement and lime production process in MW scale capable of reaching temperature up to 2000C. By using low-emission electricity instead of combustion for decomposing calcium carbonate, and by capturing the carbon dioxide produced in the production process, it is possible to run a cement plant with close to zero carbon dioxide emissions providing even negative-emission cement and lime products for the society. Successful implementation of ELECTRA will eliminate fuel-related CO2-emissions from the industries targeted by 30-50% of total process emissions, depending on the industry and mode of operation. Scalability and replicability is showcased by the platform-based solutions offering modularity, and the possibility is there to run in various hybrid modes in a transition period, lowering initial CAPEX. They allow for both new electric installations and revamping of old ones. Platform-based modular automation practices can potentially accelerate electrification by up to 5 years. Different applications also require different properties for lime and therefore variations of electrically heated processes are developed to support and complement MW scale demonstration. Replacing combustion processes with electricity-based solutions and significantly increasing emission-free electricity production is an effective means of mitigating climate change. As one of the ingredients for concrete, cement is the world's most used building material and globally the largest CO2 emitter of all industrial sectors. The results of ELECTRA contribute directly to the ambitious goal of eliminating direct CO2 emissions from the lime, paper and cement industries. The developed fully electrified solutions for calcination and clinkering will offer the cheapest option for decarbonation for these industries.