EcoSolar envisions an integrated value chain to manufacture and implement solar panels in the most ecologic way by maximising resource efficiency, taking into account reuse of materials during production and repurposing solar panel components at end of life stage. EcoSolar will demonstrate that during the lifetime of a solar electricity producing field, individual panels can be monitored, allowing to identify defaulting panels at an early stage, replacing or repairing them and thus to increase the overall energy yield. In WP1, SINTEF&Norsun will work on recovery & reuse during silicon ingot crystallisation, addressing recovery of argon purge gas and work with Steuler on reusable crucibles. In WP2 Garbo will recover Si-kerf-loss during wafering, and with SINTEF work on potential reuse applications, like as Si-feedstock in crystallisation processes, or as resource in crucible manufacturing or lithium ion battery production. In WP3, ISC&SoliTek will look into potential for re-using process water; reducing material resources, like chemicals and silver, by smarter solar cell design, more efficient processes and recovery and reuse of chemicals; AIMEN will develop solar cell monitoring and repair for inline processing in an industrial plant, to enable remanufacturing. In WP4 Apollon will use a module design that results in reduced bill of materials, enables remanufacturing and reuse of components from modules that showed failures after assembly or have been identified as malfunctioning in operating PV installations, based on integrated diagnosis techniques for the detection of failure modes. bifa will collect data from all previous WPs to assess environmental impact of the intended innovations (WP5). Bifa will identify waste streams that are costly and hard to recycle and find opportunities to repurpose those waste products. BCC will disseminate the results and will support the partners with the exploitation and replication potential of the results (WP6).

EVERPV’s objective is to provide EU with efficient solutions for a sustainable treatment of end-of-life PV panels and recovery of high purity and high integrity materials. Based on the grinding of PV panels waste from the backside and/or the use of IR lamps heating, EVERPV will demonstrate two innovative technologies to delaminate the different layers of the PV panel. Combined with recycling processes, it will enable to recover glass with less than 1% impurities, encapsulant and backsheet polymers with a purity over 99%, and silver with a purity of 99%. Besides, the project will cluster with other EU-funded consortia already addressing the recycling of silicon (e.g. PHOTORAMA) to provide with a global solution. The new delamination technologies will be respectively demonstrated at ENVIE recycling plant and at 9TECH to reach TRL7. The technology demonstrated during EVERPV project targets to process more than 3000 tons of solar panels per year, thus recovering enough raw materials recovered to produce more than 350 000 new panels per year by 2030. EVERPV will finally demonstrate the potential for reusability of recovered materials in several industrial value chains in particular in the PV industry. The project will lead a strategic analysis on the potential of new EoL panels circular value chains based on estimated PV waste generation together with environmental and societal impact assessments. EVERPV has gathered a consortium of 16 participants from 8 countries whose expertise ranges from solar PV materials and recycling processes (CEA, CSEM, ENEA, TEC), recyclers (ENVIE, 9TECH), process industries and materials suppliers (SGB, DTF, DPL, JBR), PV modules manufacturing (VAL), collecting and waste treatment organizations (SOREN, ERION), policy-making, business and training facilitators (SPE, UNITAR, BI).

Batteries have been identified as an important technology to guide the clean-energy transition. Its presence in the automotive and energy storage industry is well-established and forecasts show its incoming market uptake. However, the current BMS of FLBs lack interoperability features, resulting in a time-consuming, expensive, and non-standardized reconfiguration process for SLB adaptation. These drawbacks complicate FLB repurposing for SLB applications, like ESS. The BIG LEAP project focuses on developing solutions for the SLBs BMS and its reconfiguration process. Technology breakthroughs will be made in its BMS, as a new three-layer architecture will be designed to ensure interoperability, safety, and reliability. It will be complemented with an adaptable ESS design to ensure BMS integration and expand the SLB's potential applications. Additionally, the BIG LEAP project intends to optimize the battery reconfiguration process by making it cost-effective, faster, and standardized. The methodology for the development of these innovations includes the collection of EV, maritime E-Vessel, and ESS batteries that will be dismantled and the data collected will serve as the basis for the BMS architecture development. It will contain adaptable SoX algorithms for accurate battery measurement, a DT for real-time monitoring, and a standardization roadmap. The new BMS will be integrated into the batteries, alongside the ESS and will be tested in three demo sites. Two physical demos will be in Paris and Prague, and a virtual demo will be in Morocco. They aim to validate the novel BMS and ESS, proving their optimization and interoperability. The BIG LEAP innovation includes a multidisciplinary consortium, a strong business case, and an Environmental Impact assessment. All with the intention of accelerating its market uptake with a cost-effective solution, positively impacting the European economy through the battery value chain and tracing its sustainable benefits.

HAVEN features a systematic, collaborative, and integrated approach to the design and demonstration of a cutting-edge, sustainable, and safe HESS capable of long duration storage and provision of multiple services for supporting the electrical grid and EV charging infrastructure by coupling complementary technology assets, namely, next-generation high-energy (HE) and high-power (HP) storage technologies, optimised power converter devices with innovative cognitive functionalities, advanced and cyber-secured energy management and control tools and strategies in a novel system architecture. HAVEN seeks to achieve a modular, scalable and cost-efficient solution with the capability to efficiently manage power and energy shares while optimising the system in terms of sizing, CAPEX/OPEX, aging stress and store degradation depending on the specific application. In addition, the project will go a step further by developing a flexible Digital Twin (DT) of the system, valid regardless of the cell chemistry and application and adaptable for second life battery modules, that enables to predict the performance and management of the system over its lifetime, while easing its design and predictive maintenance. All this, leveraged by the first-hand experience of leading academic and industrial players (7 companies). HAVEN’s smart solution will be validated and demonstrated up to TRL 7 in 3 physical and 2 virtual Use-Cases (UCs), covering a wide range of grid support services and considering the specificities of multiple electricity and balancing markets, both in Europe and beyond. To pave the path towards a fast market uptake after the project, the work will also include the development of business models and industrial exploitation strategies, cementing HAVEN’s position as a game-changer in the field of energy storage systems.

SOLINDARITY will develop, demonstrate and validate the feasibility of an integrated Solar Energy-based Heat Upgrade System (SEHUS) comprising solar energy resources, innovative High Temperature Heat Pumps (HTHP), Thermal Energy Storage (TES) and Waste Heat Recovery (WHR) for the deep decarbonization of industrial processes with temperatures up to 280°C. The solar energy resources include High Vacuum Flat solar Panels (HVFPs) for pressurized hot water generation at a temperature of up to 150°C with high performance Photovoltaic (PV) panels with trackers and special nanocoatings, that (apart from producing directly power for the process power needs) drive a novel, reverse Brayton HTHP to elevate its working medium (air) temperatures up to 440°C. The project will address all major technical challenges related to the integration of the aforementioned modules to the main process plant, while holistic orchestration at system level will be achieved thanks to Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled process control, Digital Twinning (DT) architecture and easy-to-use visualization dashboard, that will optimally manage all plant assets at any given time, efficiently matchmaking the available resources with the industrial power and heat needs. The pilot system to be developed will demonstrate its effectiveness, robustness, sustainability and cost-efficiency in three industrial sites, belonging to different industrial sectors (Food, Paper, Rubber industries) and climatic regions (Germany, Greece, Italy), utilising medium-grade heat at different temperatures (195-270°C) and media (diathermic oil, air), and having different plant capacities, operational and physical configurations, land constraints, fuels in use, etc. Moreover, 5 replication studies (3 in Jordan; 2 in Morocco) have been foreseen in solar resources-abundant non-EU Mediterranean region countries. To this end, the SOLINDARITY consortium brings together 18 partners from 6 EU countries and Switzerland, Morocco and Jordan.