SmartSPIN will develop, test, validate and exploit a new business model that leads to greater uptake of Smart Energy Services (SES) deployed via performance-based contracting in the commercial rented sector. This sector has huge untapped potential for energy efficiency and flexibility but the split incentive problem has so far prevented the use of performance-based approaches to realise these savings. SmartSPIN removes this barrier through an Energy Efficiency-as-a-Service (EEaaS) concept that couples the contractual agreements between tenants, building owners and energy efficiency providers with technologies for energy monitoring, management and measurement and verification (M&V), increasing transparency, credibility and persistence of savings. SmartSPIN brings together a consortium of leading experts from the whole value chain to develop the SmartSPIN business model toolkit: a set of tools and resources for stakeholders on both the supply side (energy service companies, M&V specialists, etc.) and the demand side (tenants, building owners etc.) of the value chain. Technical resources include data-based M&V tools for accurate baseline estimation and predictive algorithms for building operation and control available via an Application Programming Interface to use with any energy data visualisation platform. Non-technical resources include best practice guides for stakeholders looking to deploy the SmartSPIN business model, contractual templates for EEaaS, case studies and infographics to describe the key features to a non-technical audience. SmartSPIN will validate the toolkit through extensive stakeholder engagement and by demonstrating its effectiveness in the commercial rented sector in 3 pilot regions (Spain, Greece and Ireland). To maximise impact, SmartSPIN will train 350 stakeholders on the business model’s key features through a series of pan-European exploitation workshops and webinars who will become early adopters beyond the end of the project.

Increasing the share of recycled plastics in new products is a central aspect of the European Strategy for Plastics, adopted by the European Commission in 2018 as a part of the first Circular Economy Action Plan (2015). One of the main goals of the Strategy is to ?ensure that by 2025 10 million tonnes of recycled plastics find their way into new products on the EU market? , against less than 4 million tonnes in 2016. However, in 2016 only 8.4 million tonnes of plastics went to recycling facilities as input material. For this reason, the collection rate has to improve significantly and more collected material needs to reach recycling facilities instead of being incinerated or landfilled. Additionally, the demand for recycled plastics needs a boost, especially in added value applications where the current share is still zero or very low. Another precondition for the uptake of recycled plastics in added value products is trust. On the supply side, definitions, standards and traceability will help OEMs integrating recycled plastics into their business models. On the demand side, general acceptance of new materials will be crucial from all stakeholders, including manufacturers and the general public. The INCREACE project will tackle above mentioned issues through innovative and interdisciplinary solutions along the entire plastics recycling value chain embedded in a systemic framework. The project partners will develop new data-driven sorting solutions, combine complementary recycling technologies to increase the recycling yield and introduce new digital verification methods (blockchain) to create the required trust in the industry. The consortium will collaborate beyond organisational and sectoral boundaries to develop specific business-cases to proof the concept. The partners will provide targeted inputs into standardisation, policy making and foster active and inclusive engagement oof all relevant stakeholders as actors of the circular plastic transition.

GreenCharge will empower cities and municipalities to make the transition to zero emission/sustainable mobility with innovative business models, technologies and guidelines for cost efficient and successful deployment and operation of charging infrastructure for EVs. Inspired by ideas from sharing economy, the business models will focus on enabling the mutualisation of excess capacity of private RES, private charging facilities and the batteries of parked EVs, leveraging fair gain sharing to ensure sufficient incentives for all stakeholders to participate. The enabling technology will coordinate the power demand of charging with other local demand and availability of local RES, leveraging load flexibility and storage capacity of local stationary batteries and parked EVs. Furthermore, it will provide user friendly charge planning, booking and billing services for EV users. This will reduce the need for grid investments to establish new charging stations, remove range anxiety and enable the sharing of already existing dedicated charging facilities for EV fleets. To implement the technology the project will integrate and extend existing systems. Pilots will be carried out in Barcelona, Bremen and Oslo to demonstrate and evaluate the proposed approach. The pilots will be extended with simulations for exploring more complex scenarios not possible to test in the pilots and to assess scalability. The guidelines will synthesize the experience from the pilots and simulations and advice on localisation of charging points, grid investment reductions, and policy and public communication measures for accelerating uptake of electromobility, and will be aligned with Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) processes. The consortium includes commercial companies (also SMEs) with experience in commercialisation, and ambitious municipalities with significant experience in deploying innovative solutions. The project duration will be 36 months, with a requested funding of 5 M€.

The main objective of HyInHeat is the integration of hydrogen as fuel for high temperature heating processes in the energy intensive industries. While some of the equipment is already presented as hydrogen-ready, the integration of hydrogen combustion in heating processes still needs adoption and redesign of infrastructure, equipment and the process itself. HyInHeat realizes the implementation of efficient hydrogen combustion systems to decarbonize heating and melting processes of the aluminium and steel sectors, covering almost their complete process chains. To reach this overarching objective within the project, furnace and equipment like burners or measurement and control technology but also infrastructure is redesigned, modified and implemented in eight demonstrators at technical centres and industrial plants. Besides hydrogen-air heating, oxygen-enriched combustion and hydrogen-oxyfuel heating is implemented to boost energy efficiency and to decrease the future hydrogen fuel demand of the processes. This might result in a total redesign of the heating process itself which will be supported by simulation methods enhancing digitalisation along the value chain. Since critical production processes are converted, it is a fundamental requirement to maintain product quality and yield. Priority is also given to the refractory lining to prove sustainability. From an environmental perspective, new concepts for NOx emission measurement in hydrogen combustion off-gas are developed. Material flow analysis and life cycle analysis methods will support the comprehensive cross-sectorial evaluation, which allows the determination of the potential for the implementation of hydrogen heating processes in energy intensive industry. With these activities, HyInHeat contributes to the objectives of decreasing CO2 emission of the processes while increasing energy efficiency in a cost competitive way keeping NOx emission levels and resource efficiency at least at the same level.

Severe hydro-meteorological phenomena are having a high impact in European territories and are of global concern. The science behind these phenomena is complex and advancement in knowledge proceeds with progress in data acquisition and forecasting useful for real-scenario interventions. The employment of nature-based solutions (NBS) to mitigate the impact of hydro-meteorological phenomena is not adequately demonstrated, still uncoordinated at the European level, therefore not reaching full potential. Actions to achieve highest NBS impact requires strategies to enhance societal acceptance, policy strengthening while demonstrating advantages for market development. The objective of OPERANDUM is to reduce hydro-meteorological risks in European territories through co-designed, co-developed, deployed, tested and demonstrated innovative green and blue/grey/hybrid NBS, and push business exploitation. It aims provision of science-evidence for the usability of NBS, best practices for their design based on participatory processes. It foresees a multiple level of stakeholders engagement from the local community up to the international level to leverage widest possible NBS acceptance to promote its diffusion as a good practice. It establishes the framework for the strengthening of NBS-based policies according to local legislation and promotes technology and innovation in NBS to create a European leadership. OPERANDUM is based on open-air laboratories (OALs), a fairly new concept that expands the Living Labs to a wider vision for natural and rural areas. In OALs novel NBS in seven European countries and three in China and Australia are implemented to address specific risks and their effectiveness, assessed through innovative monitoring systems and cutting-edge numerical modelling approaches. OPERANDUM realizes a multi-dimensional open and flexible platform enabling stakeholders and end users to improve knowledge in NBS to mitigate climate change as well as ways to promote and exploit the improved/preserved environment while increasing business opportunities.