e-SAFE defines and develops a market-ready deep renovation system for non-historic buildings, whose ability to uptake the EU market relies on the combination of decarbonization goals with earthquake safety (where applicable), indoor comfort, reduced implementation time and cost, affordable financial options, reduced occupants’ disturbance, increased aesthetic and functional attractiveness. This is reached through an iterative process based on a multidisciplinary methodology, where traditional modelling and experimental research are integrated with tools for promoting financial feasibility, knowledge co-production, mutual learning and public engagement. The result is a new deep renovation system that benefits from the full integration between technological innovation and process-based innovation. From a technological standpoint, e-SAFE integrates TRL5-6 technologies within a TRL8-9 upscaled framework, deployed and validated through 3 large scale pilot projects. The output is an abacus of innovative, tailorable, integrated solutions for energy-efficient deep renovation, with recyclable bio-materials and increased seismic resistance. The e-SAFE technical systems also enhance indoor comfort while significantly reducing primary energy demand. Market uptake and public interest in deep renovation are than pursued via 3 process-based innovations: 1) a co-design protocol for future e-SAFE exploiters, to fully engage their customers in the finalization of renovation design, assisted by a newly developed ICT-based decision making tool; 2) an original dedicated value chain, where e-SAFE-related royalties are used by a new one-stop-shop financing entity for broadening deep renovation opportunities by providing to potential clients tailored financial solutions; 3) the generation of a public engagement protocol that makes every e-SAFE-based project an occasion to raise public awareness on the importance of decarbonization and seismic safety, while enhancing market opportunities.

The mission of HYSTORE is to develop and validate an innovative set of TES concepts, based on the combination of cutting-edge technology components: ALL-IN-ONE PCM solution, LOW-TEMP PCM HEATING&COOLING solution, PCM HEATING solution and TCM HEATING&COOLING solution. The four novel concepts attain different applications on heating/cooling (H/C), DHW configurations, and further set up optimal conditions for the provision of hybrid – meaning energy and power- services thanks to the development of a smart aggregator and an open-source multi-service platform. The main key features of HYSTORE are: • Technological advancement of thermal energy storage (TES) with up to +150% energy density and -50% CAPEX compared to state-of-art (SoA) • Significant lower design and installation effort thanks to pre-defined and standardized guidelines; • allow TES to be coupled and integrated with grid-level aggregators that can be federated in the context of both single buildings and local energy communities • 4 use case application in different climates both for District Heating/Cooling connected and non DHC-connected buildings with high-impact and replication potential. • LCOS in line with EU targets from IRENA annual reports and SET-plan. HYSTORE puts TES sytems in the path of 0,05€/kW/cycle over around 0,04 €/kWh by 2030, which is competitive with batteries. To reach these goals, HYSTORE leverages on a consortium of 18 entities from 8 different EU countries, highly qualified and leaders in their sectors of activity. This consortium covers the whole value chain of the thermal energy storage, technologies for its interconnection with the grid and its optimal operation by exploiting the flexibility resources. The final goal for HYSTORE is to realise the paradigmatic shift of thermal storage from an auxiliary service to the HVAC system to a service for the building to provide the needed comfort with high efficiency while supporting the grid for effective electric-thermal sector coupling.

RINNO envisions to deliver a framework solution that will help drastically accelerating the rate of deep renovation in EU building stock reaching an ambitious annual renovation rate of 3.5%. Its ultimate goal is to develop, validate and demonstrate an operational interface with augmented intelligence and an occupant-centered approach that will streamline and facilitate the whole lifecycle of building renovation (planning-design, retrofitting, monitoring). This concept has at its foundation, a set of cost-attractive, environmentally friendly, multi-functional and easily applicable building-related innovations, grouped into: a) plug-n-play, modular building envelope solutions and b) RES, hybrid and storage solutions. RINNO couples the above with innovative retrofitting processes, methods and tools, characterized by low tenants’ disruption. These comprise: efficient (off/on-site) construction strategies, on-the-job AR facilitating environment and multi-stakeholder collaboration, which are expected to shrink the time and cost required for deep renovation, while improving buildings’ performance; all with a short payback period of <4 years on average. The above will be supported businesswise with novel business models aligned with the circular economy principles, enriched with investment de-risking tools and advanced crowd-equity/crowd-lending schemes. RINNO is expected to impact the EU inefficient building stock by a) reaching an ambitious annual renovation rate of 3.5%; b) primary energy savings of 165 GWh/year; c) a reduction of electricity cost by at least 30%; d) a total cost / time reduction in comparison with typical renovation by more than 30% and 40% respectively, and e) an estimated reduction of 40,400 tons CO2-eq/year. RINNO optimized renovation roadmap will be demonstrated at 4 large scale (3,386m2) pilot use cases after being pre-piloted, covering different EU climatic zones and markets of diverse maturity in the renovation sector.

Heating consumption in the residential sector in Europe is around 2300 TWh/y, DHW consumptions reaches 500 TWh/y, while cooling consumption is less than 100 TWh/y. The construction sector offers unique opportunities to decarbonise the European economy. However, as the replacement rate of the existing stock is very small (1-1.5 % per year), acceleration is needed. On top of this, the reorganisation of the sector poses tremendous challenges due to its extreme fragmentation: more than 50% of the residential buildings are owned by private single owners. Moreover, whilst few major industrial players are active on the market, it is largely dominated (more than 95%) by SMEs both on the manufacturers’ and the professionals’ side. BuildHEAT addresses this challenging sector by: - elaborating systemic packages for the deep rehabilitation of residential buildings - developing innovative technologies facilitating the implementation of the renovation measures - developing financial tools enabling large public and private investments - involving the construction chain from the very beginning and all along the building life cycle. A set of reliable, energy efficient and affordable retrofit solutions will be mad available, which execution is facilitated by industrialised, modular and flexible HVAC, façade and ICT systems developed. Despite the affordability, innovative solutions are more expensive compared to off the shelf ones. Therefore financing models are needed to facilitate the massive entry to market of the new technologies. BuildHEAT aims to leverage large private investments by using European structural funds, thus promoting retrofit actions at quarter level. Finally, BuildHEAT involves the entire construction chain – from owners to professionals to investors – in the retrofit process and all along the lifetime of the building, by addressing technical, behavioural, cultural and economic perspectives. In this way, awareness and involvement are triggered.

HYBUILD will develop two innovative hybrid storage concepts: one for the Mediterranean climate primarily meant for cooling energy provision, and one for the Continental climate primarily meant for heating and DHW production. HYBUILD action is a systematic approach for developing operationally integrated thermal and electric components and systems from TRL4 to TRL6 and beyond. The hybrid storage concepts are based on: a compact sorption storage, based on a patented way to integrate an innovative adsorbent material within an efficient high surface heat exchanger, a high density latent storage, based on a high performance aluminum micro-channel heat exchanger with additional PCM layers, and an efficient electric storage. The balancing of thermal and electrical energy flows will be realized by seamless integration of electric building components in a DC coupled system and by efficient conversion and upgrading of electric surplus and renewable thermal energy sources by compression and adsorption heat pumps. The components will be integrated to realize the full-scale hybrid storages (with overall volume between 1 and 2 m3), which will be properly managed by advanced control and building energy management systems (BEMS), able to optimize the interactions between components and district network. Such a configuration will allow reaching energy savings ranging between 20 and 40%, on yearly basis, both in Mediterranean and Continental climate for non-connected and district-connected buildings. HYBUILD hybrid storages will be used to upgrade existing building configurations and monitored in three different demo sites in near-life operation, both for non-connected and district-connected buildings in different climates.