Gathering 18 partners from 3 African, 5 European countries and 2 associated countries, SUNNY is a 48-months project that aims to provide highly replicGathering 17 partners from 3 African, 5 European countries and 2 associated countries, SUNNY is a 48-months project that aims to provide highly replicable solutions for green energy transition and energy access in Africa. To reach that goal, five Renewable Energy Technologies, reaching TRL 7-8 will be improved, adapted to the local context and demonstrated in two sites in Uganda and Rwanda, reaching around 1300 refugees and persons in the local host populations. The technologies developed in SUNNY will be upgraded following circular economy and local value chain approaches in order to create economic activity locally as well as ensure relevance of the solutions and long-term sustainability. To ensure uptake, a strong focus will also be made on cost-effectiveness and adapted business models. Solar home systems will ensure the access to basic energy needs at a household level (PR1). Clean hydrogen (PR2) and biogas (PR3) cooking solutions will allow cooking to be decarbonised while improving health conditions. Refrigerated food storage (PR4) and smart solar irrigation, combined with biogas, will allow to improve food security in rural African areas and address the WEF nexus. Holistic models (PR5) and assessment methods (PR8) will allow to identify and validate the benefits and sustainability of the technologies, while social innovation through among others capacity building will support the long-term socio-economic impact (PR6) and ensure local uptake as well as a strong replicability potential. Indeed, SUNNY ambitions to widely impact humanitarian energy practices through a replication plan comprising the involvement of 15 replication cases with new interoperability of technologies, training activities towards African and EU-wide energy-access and development agencies and camps managers, and policy recommendations (PR8).

The overall objective of TRUST-EPC-SOUTH is to scale up investments on Energy Efficiency (EE) and other Sustainable Energy (SE) in the tertiary sector of southern European countries, with particular focus on Energy Performance Contracts (EPC) projects. This objective will be achieved through the development of an ad hoc investment standardization and benchmarking framework and supported with the organisation of tailored capacity building activities that will allow project developers (including ESCOs , ESPCs and other EPC providers), project sponsors and tertiary sector actors to more easily access third party financing, thus unlocking the large tertiary sector EE/SE market potential. Geographically, the project will be carried out in the following 6 countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Croatia and Greece, in which we both see a need to improve the situation and a large untapped market potential in the tertiary sector.

SystR will propose a groundbreaking approach to feed the science-policy nexus with innovative solutions to address systemic risks (interconnection between multiple sectors and stakeholders and resulting cascading climate impacts). This approach will accelerate transformative adaptation and avoid maladaptation by breaking silos, harmonising multiple scales of governance and tailoring solutions to local needs and strengths with Smart Specialisation Strategies. SystR will deliver a set of innovative results that will collectively strengthen the systemic resilience of the 6 multi-scale regions and communities involved and have a long lasting impact: 1. An Adaptation Support tool targeting the process of systemic adaptation based on the P2R project Regional Resilience Journey 2. A Community Empowerment framework for actively mobilising a diversity of actors across the value chain into the development and testing of transformative solutions, fit to address local climate and aggravating systemic vulnerabilities and risks 3. Novel systemic Governance schemes to improve cooperation at multiple scales 4. Coherent Financial roadmaps to determine how to finance identified resilience solutions and strategies 5. Design, with the support of the digital Visualisation tools, and implement Integrated Ecosystem of Resilience Solutions, integrating the cross sectorial enabling and systemic physical solutions including NBS 6. Accelerate the uptake of its results for critical mass creation, through the Upscaling toolbox and the One Stop Shop, the SystR’s results aggregator. Overall, while pursuing close collaboration with the Climate Adaptation Mission, SystR will demonstrate systemic resilience in three contexts most representative of Europe: coastal in Guadeloupe-France, rural in Bystrica-Slovakia and urban in Rome-Italy, which will be twinned with replication sites of similar challenges, Galicia, Strasbourg and Egaleo, respectively.

HESTIA aims to provide a cost-effective solution for the next-generation DR services which will leverage the consumer engagement, energy and non-energy services, while dealing with both energy supply and demand side in a holistic manner. HESTIA intends to engage with residential consumers representing a still largely untapped sector, while enabling them to play an active role in flexibility sharing and grid balancing. HESTIA will enable residential DR services through: (i) exploitation of energy demand flexibility by engaging the consumers in demand-side management activities, and (ii) valorisation of energy efficiency in multi-carrier energy dispatching and optimal operation of building systems. HESTIA will exploit the consumer engagement as part of cooperative DR strategy at the community level, i.e. clusters of individual consumers and prosumers. To motivate the consumers to actively participate, HESTIA will leverage the financial, environmental and social drivers, while cross-fertilizing them to maximize the impact. HESTIA will involve the residents in the designing of the solutions through participatory co-design processes. HESTIA will create community engagement methodology and organisational tools with a high acceptance, that can be replicated and provide the corresponding tailored toolsets for a broader rollout. HESTIA will exploit the aggregated energy resource flexibility at the demand-side, in terms of cumulative energy consumption, distributed energy generation and storage, to better manage the disparity between energy demand, RES availability and grid requirements. User-personalized services will be delivered via a fully service-oriented, flexible ICT platform, underpinned by agent-based concepts, consumer digital twin and non-intrusive data analytics. This way, HESTIA will set the foundation for an open marketplace and a new grid reality, while steering consumer engagement according to the grid requirements and promoting RES and sustainable behaviour.

ENERFUND is a tool that will rate and score deep renovation opportunities – like a credit score used by banks to rate clients. The tool will be based on a methodology to be developed and on a set of parameters such as EPC data, number of certified installers, governmental schemes running, etc. By providing a rating for deep renovation opportunities – whether for private establishments or for public buildings – funding institutes can provide targeted loans, retrofit companies can identify sound opportunities, municipalities can promote targeted incentives and the public's trust for retrofitting will be enhanced. The objectives of the current proposal is to (a) analyse the status quo and needs of deep renovation stakeholders and the public, (b) build upon the outcomes of previous projects to create a tool for deep renovation financing, (c) promote the tool to all interested stakeholders, (d) measure and document the impact of the tool on deep renovation strategies and financing and (e) provide a powerful tool that will assist EU stakeholders meet their obligations on increasing renovation rates. The partners, from 12 countries, include 2 universities, in charge of the project management and the development of the methodology behind the tool, 2 SMEs with extensive experience on database management, EPC mapping, development of online decision-making tools, and 11 Ministries, Energy Agencies, NGOs, etc that are connected with the relevant stakeholders throughout Europe and can promote the tool. The expected impact is approximately 45GWh due to the use of the tool to promote deep renovation of buildings and through our training and dissemination activities. ENERFUND will account for approximately 1% of the current annual renovation rate during the project duration. The strategic, long term aim is to provide a unified global tool for the promotion, not only of deep renovation of buildings, but of all energy related activities in the building sector.