STOR-HY aims to minimize CAPEX, OPEX for innovative pumped storage projects. This is achieved by enhancing the lifetime and recyclability of components and equipment, and devising operation strategies for unconventional schemes through sensor-based condition monitoring systems. These systems detect early failure mechanisms, enabling the postponement of unnecessary maintenance actions and avoiding unplanned outages. Furthermore, strategic use of digital tools for operational management is employed to improve efficiency, reliability, and availability of Pumped Storage Plants. Considering energy and market demand dynamics, variable renewable generation, and integration, STOR-HY addresses climate change effects and enhances flexibility and resilience of the EU energy grid. The project focuses on optimizing plant availability, offering increased storage potential, peak shaving, fast response regulation, and ancillary services for grid resilience. The integration of digital tools, real-time controllers, monitoring strategies, and predictive maintenance algorithms is consolidated in a Cyber-physical platform for Advanced Decision Support (CADS). This platform, along with high-tech computational models, enables the realistic estimation of critical component degradation in short- and long-term operations. This information supports informed decision-making in PSP operation and aids in the design of innovative control strategies for challenging conditions. These developments result in a broader operating range and increased flexibility in EU hydropower generation and storage potential. STOR-HY prioritizes building regional connections with local stakeholders, industry, academia, and policy institutions. Sustainability considerations encompass environmental, circularity, economic, and social aspects, drawing insights from previous projects. These insights include on-site impacts, societal acceptance, ecological concerns, and LCC.

Hydropower and storage capacity need to increase to meet the need for renewable and dispatchable power generation. According to IEA, worldwide hydro-power capacity should increase from 1,360 GW in 2021 to 1,563–1,782 GW by 2030 and up to over 2,500 GW in 2050. At the same time, hydropower refurbishment projects must implement modern sustainability standards that preserve biodiversity and contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. The main objective of ReHydro is to demonstrate how European hydropower can be refurbished and modernized to be fit for a leading role in the future power system respecting sustainability requirements and societal needs in a climate change context. A suite of monitoring and digital tools (performance, cavitation, machine health) implemented at demonstration sites will improve hydropower efficiency. Innovative concepts like retrofitting with pumped hydro and hybridization will make hydropower fit for future markets. ReHydro will demonstrate how biodiversity can be improved with new fish-friendly turbines, re-establishment of environmental flows, and monitored using new tools such as eDNA. Smarter use of water resources will also be implemented so that more services can be delivered to the power markets, while multi-purpose use of the water resources for navigation and recreation can be expanded and the ability to mitigate flooding and droughts is strengthened. The results from ReHydro will achieve all the expected outcomes specified in the call. The solutions will give European hydropower industries commercial advantages to utilise the global need for hydropower expansion. It is expected that ReHydro's exploitable results will create 700–1150 new jobs in the manufacturing industry, increasing the global market by 275 mill euros. ReHydro will introduce a new paradigm to boost European leadership and competitiveness in the hydropower industry and provide new sustainable solutions that are replicable at European and global levels.

The ultimate objective of the XFLEX project is to increase hydropower potential in terms of plant efficiency, availability and provision of flexibility services to the Electric Power System (EPS). The high Renewable Energy Sources (RES) scenario of the decarbonisation process relies on a drastic change of the European Union EPS with a massive integration of non-dispatchable RES and disconnection of the so-called conventional units, as greenhouse gases emitters. These changes influence drastically the provision of the power grid balancing, and challenge the EPS operations and safety. It is of upmost importance to provide reliable solutions to support the EPS with more flexibility services. Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) already significantly supports EPS flexibility in terms of regulation capability, fast frequency control, fast start/stop, fast generating to pumping modes transition, high ramping rate, inertia emulation, fault ride through capacity, etc. XFLEX aims to demonstrate an innovative methodology for system integration of hydroelectric technology solutions, variable speed being a key component and a reference, to provide further enhanced flexibility services assessed by a crosscutting analysis of their impact on both the technology and the market aspects. Innovative solutions also target an optimize maintenance plan to decrease the outage time and increase the availability of the plant. Demonstrations are scheduled in the cases of run-of-river, storage and pumped storage HPPs and they cover cases of refurbished, uprated and especially existing HPP to be applied and scaled to any unit size. XFLEX draws the roadmap for the exploitation of its solutions to all the European HPP fleet. A strategic dissemination plan is set to promote the deployment of the demonstrated solutions to stakeholders, to the scientific community and the public and to further support the communication in workshops, conferences, scientific journals, newspapers and various social media.