SUNTHERM has developed a Worlds first 25 kWh thermal storage compact battery, based on salt hydrate dissolved in mineral oil that enables up to 25 hours of heat displacement (patent pending). SUNTHERM’s game-changer integrated heating system for households - SmartHeat - consists of: - Smart heating and heat storage, provided by a 25 kWh thermal battery (60 × 60 × 200 cm), coupled to a module of cloudbased management with an online control unit for real-time control over heat management, acting as a buffer in the grid; - Solar thermal collectors, for higher flexibility and 100% zero-carbon, sustainable heat production; - Heat pump, smart grid enabled, providing the management of energy loads - peak load shaving -, the storage of excess power during low demand periods for release during peak demand periods - load balancing -, and the integrated optimization of the heat pump operation. SmartHeat can effectively cover normal family's daily needs for radiators, floor heating or hot water, with a heat release capacity above any other heating unit available, due to its intelligent and huge storage capacity - equivalent to an oil burner in a utility room and delivery of twice the amount of hot water than a conventional hot water tank. By storing energy from the sun - or when the power is cheap - in our unique battery and delivering it when the house requires heating, we will offer the homeowner the opportunity to reduce the heat bill by 75% in comparison to the use of an oil burner, due to 40% increase in efficiency vs. a stand-alone heat pump. Through the successful development and implementation of SmartHeat WWF award winning technology, SUNTHERM will be in a strong position to exploit a market worth at 34.5 billion € and enhance its profitability by the stream of the sales, with an expected cumulated turnover of 83 million €, 5 years after project completion.

SUNTHERM has developed a Worlds first 25 kWh thermal storage compact battery, based on salt hydrate dissolved in mineral oil that enables up to 25 hours of heat displacement (patent pending). SUNTHERM’s game-changer integrated heating system for households - SmartHeat - consists of: - Smart heating and heat storage, provided by a 25 kWh thermal battery (60 × 60 × 200 cm), coupled to a module of cloud-based management with an online control unit for real-time control over heat management, acting as a buffer in the grid; - Solar thermal collectors, for higher flexibility and 100% zero-carbon, sustainable heat production; - Heat pump, smart grid enabled, providing the management of energy loads - peak load shaving -, the storage of excess power during low demand periods for release during peak demand periods - load balancing -, and the integrated optimization of the heat pump operation. SmartHeat can effectively cover normal family's daily needs for radiators, floor heating or hot water, with a heat release capacity above any other heating unit available, due to its intelligent and huge storage capacity - equivalent to an oil burner in a utility room and delivery of twice the amount of hot water than a conventional hot water tank. By storing energy from the sun - or when the power is cheap - in our unique battery and delivering it when the house requires heating, we will offer the homeowner the opportunity to reduce the heat bill by 75% in comparison to the use of an oil burner, due to 40% increase in efficiency vs. a stand-alone heat pump. Through the successful development and implementation of SmartHeat WWF award winning technology, SUNTHERM will be in a strong position to exploit a market worth at 34.5 billion € and enhance its profitability by the stream of the sales, with an expected cumulated turnover of 70 million €, 5 years after project completion.

The 2018 EPBD update identifies deep renovation as key to drastically reduce energy demand and achieve the EU vision of a decarbonised building stock by 2050. The technology to achieve this reduction is available on the market today. Renovation rates are still far from the target 3% and shallow retrofits persist with low impacts on energy consumption. StepUP will develop a new process for deep renovation for decarbonisation, with fast design to operation feedback loops to minimise performance gap and optimise investments. The project will deliver plug&play technologies for minimal disruption, interconnected for maximum impact on energy, costs, IEQ and user comfort. The new iterative approach to renovation, based in big data for continuous performance improvement, will reduce financial barriers and make decarbonisation of existing buildings a reliable, attractive investment. StepUP will: 1. Make renovation more attractive and reliable with a new methodology based on near-real time data intelligence to identify cost-optimal, high impact interventions at any stage of the building life; 2. Reduce the performance gap to 10% via an integrated life-cycle software platform to plan renovation steps, identify high value ECM, improve IEQ, integrate RES (including storage) and optimise operations by constantly refining and verifying targets and constraints; 3. Minimise time on site to 40% by advancing innovative technologies for deep renovation to a market-ready renovation package of Plug & Play Technologies, including RE generation and storage for decarbonisation; 4. Optimise renovation investments via innovative financing models for optimisation of energy, comfort and cost performance over the building life, based on progressive financing and building performance as a service; 5. Accelerate the renovation market via an open protocol for interoperability of the StepUP solutions with third party market products, fostering a plug&play environment accessible to innovative SMEs.

Digitisation in existing buildings is not as widespread as in other sectors. A consequence is that buildings owners and occupants have generally a limited understanding of their building as an energy system. Improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings can and should be achieved through deep renovation. In comparison, smart technologies can increase the efficiency and the flexibility of buildings in a shorter term and with much less investments. The domOS project addresses the smart building sector through two axes. In the first axis, technology, guidelines for an open, secure, multi-service Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem for smart buildings are defined: in-building gateways, which connect to local smart devices and smart appliance of any type, IoT platforms and applications operated by different parties can be integrated seamlessly. Buildings owners can enforce privacy rules, they can allow / forbid access to any measurement or control point. The second axis deals with the development of smart services. They increase energy efficiency of space heating (heat pumps, district heating, gas boilers) thanks to innovative control algorithms making use of smart sensors and smart heating appliances. Automated advice services provide concise and sound information on the building energy. Buildings become active nodes of an electricity grid or a District Heating grid. These two axes are present in each of the five demonstration sites of the domOS project: The Sion (CH) and Paris (F) pilots test smart services related to electricity. In Aalborg (DK), control techniques applied to space heating for buildings connected to a Distributed Heating grid reduces consumption and lower costs, CO$_{2}$ emissions and system load. In the Neuchâtel (CH) and Skive (DK) demonstrators, closed-loop control minimises temperature at the output of the heating system, thus increasing efficiency and reducing losses.

The overall purpose of the SUSTENANCE project is to set up sustainable energy systems for achieving novel carbon neutral energy communities. The project focus on the development of smart technological concepts ensuring a green transition of the energy systems with higher share of local renewable energy and more efficient integrated energy solutions for the electrical, heat, water, waste as well as transportation infrastructure. The set up solutions will at the same time have good socio-economic impact in the local communities and ensure ecofriendly solutions and good infrastructures, which provides support to sustaining the essentials of life. The demonstration activities are set up in four countries: Denmark, India, Netherlands and Poland. These countries has different local energy resources, socio-economic, user behavior, political structures, market conditions and regulations. The project will show how same technical concepts such as coupling of different energy vectors, storage solutions, demand response, intelligent control schemes and digitalization can be applied to all demonstration cases despite the huge differences in the local conditions and regulations. Road maps will be set up based on these technical solutions together with guidelines for methods for user engagement and ensuring cooperation among the users in relevant cases leading to cooperatives. Finally, business cases will be set up for the different demonstration sites seen from both user perspective, small enterprises and utility point of view taking into account the local conditions. In this way, synergy effects with inputs from the different demonstration sites are expected and the results give abundant possibilities for maximum impact and replication in other local communities in the four countries as well as in societies worldwide.