AID4SME will facilitate SMEs in developing combined AI and data solutions for large scale resource optimisation challenges for industries that have significant impact on the objectives of the Green Deal. Minimum 20 SMEs, selected through 2 open calls, will receive FSTP to develop these solutions with the support of a Community of Practice (COP). The ambition is to create a COP that will continue after the project lifetime. AID4SME brings together 9 technology blocks and low-TRL playgrounds from 4 scientific partners, to educate and support the SMEs. Additionally, 4 large industry partners (from automotive, whitegoods, battery and energy sector) provide real-life large scale resource optimization challenges that require combined AI and data solutions, and high-TRL playgrounds to integrate and demonstrate the solutions.AID4SME offers an open platform that is flexible to bring in challenges from outside the consortium. AID4SME provides the infrastructure and learning environment that enable the SMEs to solve the challenges, demonstrate solutions and grow into impactful enterprises. The technology blocks cover a wide area of AI & data technologies for the full cycle of data collection, creation of insights, decision support and automation. These technologies have the potential to have significant impact on the Green Transition and boost EU competitiveness for industries. AID4SME will collaborate with the AI-on-Demand platform to enrich its repository with the AID4SME tools and framework, while it is open to deploy the tools/frameworks already available on the AI-on-Demand platform for new use cases. AID4SME will assess the impact of the developed technologies on Green Deal objectives and on social and human aspects. AID4SME brings along partners who are experienced in re-skilling and up-skilling of SMEs and applying standardization as enabler for exploitation. The wide geographical coverage, with partners and DIHs from all across Europe, ensures maximum impact.

The SOLAR-MOVE project aims to contribute to the massive adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) minimizing their impact in the power grid by proposing solutions for different Vehicles Integrated Photovoltaic (VIPV) ecosystems: i) VIPV in cities, ii) VIPV in residential and service buildings, iii) VIPV in passenger transportation and iv) VIPV in highways. The SOLAR-MOVE will follow three main targets: i) increase the range of the VIPV in 5 to 10 km/day compared to normal EVs; ii) reduce the dependency on the grid (energy provided by the grid) from 20 to 50 %, depending on the eco-system; and iii) create solutions with positive Net Present Value. To achieve these goals the consortium - comprised by 34 partners across 16 countries - will develop innovative VIPV solutions, including tools to be integrated in VIPV; VIPV prototypes (Heavy-duty vehicles with PV in the trailer, garbage trucks, passenger buses, last-mile delivery and motorhome); VIPV Use Optimisation solutions to maximise the range of the VIPVs; and ePIPV (charging stations with PVs) for diverse applications (in highways, opportunity charging for eBus, ePIPVs at municipality level, public ePIPV in commercial areas and private ePIPVs). The solutions will be demonstrated in six pilots across Denmark (VIPV:heavy Duty vehiles, ePIPV parking lot for trucks in highways), Greece (VIPV: Garbage Truck, ePIPV: Management of ePIPV at municipality level), Turkey (VIPV: Passenger Bus, ePIPV: Management of ePIPV Opportunity charging), Portugal (VIPV: Last mile delivery, ePIPV: Management of public ePIPV), Albania (ePIPV; Management of private ePIPV) and Slovenia (VIPV:Motorhome). The findings will contribute to the elaboration of policy recomendations to support the adoption of VIPV and ePIPV, guidelines for municipalities to simplify the procurement process for VIPS and ePIPVs solutions and regulatory frameworks and incentives to facilitate the mass deployment of these technologies.

The EU aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by at least 55% by 2030. This ambition requires fast mitigation measures within all sectors. Paludiculture is the productive land use of wet and rewetted peatlands and can reduce GHG emissions by up to 70-80%. It thus has a large potential to support the EU’s climate targets and biodiversity strategy and still provide farmers and landowners with income, but only if the practice is scaled up. Currently, there are too few large-scale sites involving local actors that demonstrate industrial scale paludiculture farming models. PaluWise's 4 large-scale paludiculture sites in Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom will showcase best practices and solutions for converting degraded organic soils to paludiculture. They develop field-scale operations and their associated five value chains (crops: Downy Birch, Reed, Sedges, Typha, Reed Canary Grass). By having two established (NL, UK) and two new sites (FI, PL), PaluWise can demonstrate different stages of paludiculture and associated value chains, emphasising replicability and scalability. Network sites (e.g., PaludiZentrale, Germany) will provide lessons learnt guidance and engage actors in innovating improvements (e.g. maintaining high water levels, adapting machinery, choosing suitable crop species). A multi-actor approach is applied to co-innovate and improve cost-effective, climate smart value chains. Activities cover the full sequence from deciding where to set up a site (WP1 decision support tool for rewettability), what works well in a site (WP2 demos), what are the benefits/impacts in emission reduction, carbon sequestration potential, biodiversity and other ecosystem services at landscape scale (WP3, WP4), and how to upscale and get support (WP5). We will identify barriers and provide recommendations to boost improved policy and legislation for large-scale deployment of paludiculture in Europe.

The main objective of the Sea4Volt project is the development of a novel low temperature Anion Exchange Membrane (AEM) electrolyser concept, able to operate efficiently, selectively, and durably with a direct seawater feed under a slight pH-gradient. Reaching this will require identifying and developing new suitable materials (catalysts, membrane, coatings, porous transport layers, bipolar plates, sealings), as well as novel electrolyser design options. The Sea4Volt will develop and demonstrate a direct seawater electrolyser prototype with novel materials/components and membrane/ionomers to reach effective high-performing and corrosion-resistant seawater electrolysis system. Results of in-operation tests will be published in public deliverables, workshops, and conferences, making it possible for the partners outside of Sea4Volt consortium to exploit leading to a wider impact throughout the European electrolyzer and fuel cell industry. The choice of the newly emerged AEM technology proposed in this project, on one hand, emphasises the extensive innovative technological impact exhibited in the implementation of novel non-CRM materials, PFAS-free anion exchange membranes and ionomers, new electrode designs and protective coatings. On the other hand, the intrinsic cost-effectiveness of the AEM technology, embedded in utilization of low-cost materials, is expected to provide further cost reductions to such an offshore electrolyser system, and will result to anticipated lower cost of green hydrogen production. The technology enabling the generation of green hydrogen directly from seawater holds immense societal-wide impacts. Shift towards green hydrogen production could also stimulate economic growth through the creation of new industries and job opportunities, particularly in regions with abundant seawater resources. Sea4Volt is also being targeted in the areas characterised with deficit of fresh water especially in underdeveloped regions around the globe.

Modern industrial companies aim to extend their products with services as fundamental value-added activities. The key potential of the concept of Product Service System (PSS), besides radical improvements in the use of products, is a reduction of environmental footprint of products and services. The overall footprint of PSS is still insufficiently investigated. The services within PSS are an important, insufficiently used source of (digitalized) data on the product and its use. It is likely that digital means facilitating provision of consistent “track and trace” information on the origin, composition and entire life cycle not only of a product but of all services offered and used around the product, will offer important contribution towards achievement of full circularity for manufacturing. The key idea of PSS-Pass is to investigate how extension of DPP to Digital Product Service System Passport (DPSSP) can be effectively achieved and how it will allow for improved circularity of the manufacturing industry. The overarching hypothesis is that LCA underpinned by Machine Learning (ML) methods and informed by dynamic data paves the way to more accurate LCA while supporting PSS life cycle decision making. The collected and sharable data from DPSSP will allow to effectively apply ML as well as Digital Twin (DT) for more reliable decision-making processes concerning circularity of PSS. The project will provide Methodological Framework for definition, development and update of DPSSP, Digital Environment for DPSSP built on existing interoperability architectures, set of ontologies for improved interoperability at DPSSP Environment, novel DT-based Simulation Framework, for modelling standardized and interoperable DTs for PSS lifecycle analysis, and AI based method/tool to forecasts the environmental impact of PSS. The PSS-Pass solutions will be tested and evaluated within 3 pilots in diverse sectors: home appliances, complex equipment, and textile industry.