This proposal is an application to the EU programme “Horizon 2020” and its topic “Large scale energy storage” (LCE-09-2015). The presented project “STORE&GO” will demonstrate three “innovative Power to Gas storage concepts” at locations in Germany, Switzerland and Italy in order to overcome technical, economic, social and legal barriers. The demonstration will pave the way for an integration of PtG storage into flexible energy supply and distribution systems with a high share of renewable energy. Using methanation processes as bridging technologies, it will demonstrate and investigate in which way these innovative PtG concepts will be able to solve the main problems of renewable energies: fluctuating production of renewable energies; consideration of renewables as suboptimal power grid infrastructure; expensive; missing storage solutions for renewable power at the local, national and European level. At the same time PtG concepts will contribute in maintaining natural gas or SNG with an existing huge European infrastructure and an already advantageous and continuously improving environmental footprint as an important primary/secondary energy carrier, which is nowadays in doubt due to geo-political reasons/conflicts. So, STORE&GO will show that new PtG concepts can bridge the gaps associated with renewable energies and security of energy supply. STORE&GO will rise the acceptance in the public for renewable energy technologies in the demonstration of bridging technologies at three “living” best practice locations in Europe.

FIWARE is a smart solution platform, funded by the EC (2011-16) as a major flagship PPP, to support SMEs and developers in creating the next generation of internet services, as the main ecosystem for Smart City initiatives for cross-domain data exchange/cooperation and for the NGI initiative. So far little progress has been made on developing specific water-related applications using FIWARE, due to fragmentation of the water sector, restrained by licensed platforms and lagging behind other sectors (e.g. telecommunications) regarding interoperability, standardisation, cross-domain cooperation and data exchange. Fiware4Water intends to link the water sector to FIWARE by demonstrating its capabilities and the potential of its interoperable and standardised interfaces for both water sector end-users (cities, water utilities, water authorities, citizens and consumers), and solution providers (private utilities, SMEs, developers). Specifically we will demonstrate it is non-intrusive and integrates well with legacy systems. In addition to building modular applications using FIWARE and open API architecture for the real time management of water systems, Fiware4Water also builds upon distributed intelligence and low level analytics (smart meters, advanced water quality sensors) to increase the economic (improved performance) and societal (interaction with the users, con-consensus) efficiency of water systems and social acceptability of digital water, by adopting a 2-Tier approach: (a) building and demonstrating four Demo Cases as complementary and exemplary paradigms across the water value chain (Tier#1); (b) promoting an EU and global network of followers, for digital water and FIWARE (cities, municipalities, water authorities, citizens, SMEs, developers) with three complementary Demo Networks (Tier#2). The scope is to create the Fiware4Water ecosystem, demonstrating its technical, social and business innovative potential at a global level, boosting innovation for water.

The central objective for Eco-UV is the demonstration and characterisation of an innovative UV lamp and driving electronics technology for chemical-free water treatment and disinfection. The newly implemented technology is a ground-breaking innovation providing up to four times increased lifetime with greatly increased efficiency, the energy consumption reduced by 80%. Thus, this technology provides a lower carbon footprint, much improved energy use and hence greatly reduced lifetime costs. Additionally, the innovative technology will be introduced with a mercury-free configuration, removing the need to handle with this hazardous substance in manufacture and disposal, hence providing a sustainable and eco-innovative technology. The project will prove the lamp technology by demonstration in real applications with full characterisation in terms of long-term stability, ageing effects and dose-response-relationship. Furthermore, the UV lamps are integrated in reactors and the performance of the whole UV system is evaluated at a test centre for drinking water. A new testing protocol for different end-users applications will furthermore be derived, which will be the basis for a future standardised validation of industrial UV applications. The technology will be installed at three demonstration sites for an extended running period. At each, the treatment performance of the UV systems will be evaluated according to the inactivation of micro organisms and the reduction of application specific chemicals, e. g. antibiotics and pesticides. A full Life Cycle evaluation of cost and environmental benefits will be disseminated via EU ETV forums to ensure active uptake of the technology offering by comparing it to traditional UV technology in terms of energy, infrastructure and lifetime costs. The proposed UV technology is addressing the thematic priority areas as outlined in the EIP on Water, especially water reuse, water treatment, water governance and the water-energy nexus.

THyGA main goal is to enable the wide adoption of hydrogen and natural gas (H2/NG) blends by closing knowledge gaps regarding technical impacts on residential and commercial gas appliances. For this purpose, THyGA will: •Screen the portfolio of technologies in the domestic and commercial sectors and assess theoretically the impact of hydrogen / natural gas admixture in order to have a quantitative segmentation of the gas appliance market and a selection of the most adequate products to be tested •Test up to 100 residential and commercial gas appliances (hobs, boilers, CHP, Heat pumps, etc.) and how 200 Million of European gas appliances will react to various H2 concentration scenarios •Benchmark and develop pre-certification protocols (test gases) for different level of H2 in natural gas for coming integration in standardization, these protocols will be validated through tests •Make recommendations for manufacturers, decision makers and end-users along the gas value chain to enable mitigation strategies for retrofit THyGA will provide an extensive understanding of previous projects or studies related to H2NG admixture utilization with domestic and commercial appliances. Through extensive testing programme, the project will establish the impact of hydrogen concentration in natural gas on safety and performances of a large set of domestic and commercial appliances. Hence, THyGA will support recommendations for revising EN or ISO standards or drafting new standards and will fully support and secure FCH-JU’s “Hydrogen Roadmap Europe” (2019). THyGA project gathers 9 renowned partners including 4 research centres, 3 industries, 1 SME, and 1 association covering the whole value chain of natural gas. The extensive advisory panel includes manufacturers, European and International Associations and DSOs included in H2/NG blends projects ensuring a constant challenge of the processed results and a great opportunity for a wide dissemination/communication plan to share results.

HyAcademy.EU will capitalise on the investments already made by the European Commission and Member States in education and training activities. The consortium brings together representatives from multiple projects (Table 1), enabling previous outputs to be consolidated and exploited, maximising the Academy impact and reach. In order to realise its objectives, the European Hydrogen Academy will have achieved by midterm to - build and sustain a network of over 100 universities (The Network of 100) offering recognised qualifications, specialisations, and degrees in hydrogen technologies, - build and sustain a network of over 500 schools integrating hydrogen topics into their science teaching, including technical schools and colleges with more specific technical training, - create a network of 5 hands-on, physical training laboratories, - offer a portal to showcase and link the educational programmes available in the network and beyond, in order to supply prospective trainees with accurate and detailed information on training and career opportunities, with a minimum of 100.000 accesses to documents specialising in hydrogen topics, - provide free training materials across European languages to lecturers and teachers in order to enable educational staff to deliver the vast body of educational measures necessary, - develop and integrate novel (online) teaching methodologies into university, college and school curricula, and train educational staff to successfully employ these, and - create and implement an organisational structure and a successful business case allowing continuation of the project activities post-funding in establishing a European Hydrogen Academy spanning all levels and types of education and training. HyAcademy.EU will considerably contribute to the EU goals of offering access to high-quality education, supporting the creation of a highly-skilled workforce and more and better jobs in the European hydrogen industry. Through the school activities it will foster public awareness and acceptance of hydrogen technologies.