Prompted by the need to comply with environmental and societal concerns, Electrical Power and Energy Systems are undergoing an unprecedented transformation, demanding urgent upgrades to make them more reliable, resilient and secure. Modernization of current grids will greatly reduce the frequency and duration of power blackouts, diminish the impact of disruptive events and restore service faster when outages occur, creating broad benefits to society and economy. eFORT approach will enable the further upgrading of the energy grid without affecting the security of supply and increasing their reliability and resiliency against extreme weather events, man-made hazards and equipment failures. eFORT addresses this complex challenge by gathering a consortium of 24 partners, from 10 EU countries, that provides the needed expertise. The project will put in place a set of solutions at the cyber and physical layers for detecting, preventing and mitigating vulnerabilities and threats. Among them, an interoperable Intelligent Platform will set a common foundation for grid characterization and vulnerability overseeing, as well as gather information from smart grid components and apply heavy-duty algorithms, whereas Asset Management developments will strengthen grid infrastructure robustness, which will be empowered by the addressed Digital Technologies. All these elements will be validated in relevant environments coming from 4 demo cases covering the whole grid value chain: (i) a transmission network (The Netherlands); (ii) a remote distribution grid (Italy); (iii) a digital substation in Ukraine; and (iv) a micro-grid in Spain. Moreover, eFORT relies on several horizontal actions aiming at empowering EPES players by establishing a common regulatory and standardisation framework, performing technical and cost-benefit analysis, and evaluating new related business models and replication potential, in the pathway towards a more sustainable energy system.

OPENTUNITY’s mission is to create a flexibility ecosystem reducing interoperability barriers and favouring the use of standards in order to decarbonize EU grids and put the end-user in the spotlight. Grid operators, prosumers, market actors etc. will be supported by OPENTUNITY via innovative methodologies backed by advanced, interoperable software modules, in order to provide them with new features and services related to: 1) Technologies to boost flexibility in prosumer’s environment; 2) Technologies for grid operators to better manage grid operations). OPENTUNITY will also evolve, adapt and integrate a Federated Data Space infrastructure in which actors from different fields will share services and find synergies among them in order to create a reliable energy system in which different verticals (electromobility, gas, OEM etc.) will be able to seamlessly collaborate with each other. OPENTUNITY will be demonstrated in 4 different countries (Greece, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland), benefitting 26.852 citizens and reducing 91,22 MtCO2eq GHG emissions and energy poverty by 30% by 2032.

CHRONICLE will deliver a holistic, life-cycle performance assessment framework and tool-suite for different building variants, supporting sustainable design, construction and/or efficient renovation and investment decision making. It will be methodologically integrate ongoing initiatives, like EPCs, Level(s), SRI, under the umbrella of the Digital Building Logbook concept. Performance will be assessed by means of well-defined KPIs, based on both static (by design) as well as dynamic information (sensor measurements) appropriately tailored to different types of use and building life-cycle phases (new or existing buildings under refurbishment). Continuous monitoring and analysis of the actual building performance over its lifetime, will be based on a powerful digital twin framework. The proposed data availability and accessibility within CHRONICLE will extend the limits of the EU energy related policies while the aggregated EPC advanced information will facilitate efficient energy planning. To this end, CHRONICLE will allow all stakeholders to realize in quantified terms the short- and long-term impact of the project activities, from policy to practice, and across the whole building life cycle. It will therefore promote evidence-based impact assessment practices to support policy coherence, design of smart penalties and reward schemes towards motivating energy consciousness, while also paying attention to the voice of market stakeholders (AECs, ESCOs, FMs) but also building owners and tenants/occupants, who are directly impacted by future regulatory decisions. CHRONICLE’s building performance assessment framework and tool-set will be demonstrated and validated in five pilot sites spanning the geographic diversity of Europe, namely in Spain, Ireland, Denmark, Greece and Switzerland.

Industrial-Urban symbiosis (I-US) involves municipalities and regions cooperating with industries on the management of resources, waste, energy, water, infrastructures, services, transportation and networks. This inter-disciplinary and cross-sectoral character is implemented by Hubs4Circularity (H4C) in a FOAK approach, as key instruments for delivering territorial I-US solutions in Europe by Processes4Planed partnership. Theseus will establish first-of-a-kind H4C in Greece originating from the capital region of Athens/Attica (incl. Athens metropolitan area -Greek capital, 68 municipalities, 2.928 km, 3,7 million inhabitants 35% of national- several industrial and semi-urban areas) towards the whole country, with overarching aim of closing loops through I-US to become climate neutral by 2050, in line with P4P partnership objectives. Theseus will validate new or existing technologies and develop solutions for water, energy and materials based on regional needs (Innovation Pillar (IP) 2 , 3) and digital/robotic technologies (IP4). The hub will operate under innovative governance and cooperation models of involved stakeholders, to enable pilots, upscale solutions, exploit outcomes, attract further companies and expand existing ecosystem (IP1,5). Water, energy and material flows were targeted selected, being widely spread, having high potential all over Europe and included in EU/P4P strategies. The overall systemic, based on regional science approach and IP1,IP5 activities will ensure strong insights to smoothly replicate Theseus solutions to other EU regions. Several existing innovations from H4C, I-US and Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI) projects will be used, retrofitted and expanded.. The systemic solution of Theseus is expected to have significant impact on the region, while metaphorically recalling the mythical figure of Theseus, king and great reformer of Athens.

EBENTO is aiming to develop an integrated platform for all actors involved in building and renovation sector to provide one-stop-shop to better coordinate and manage Energy Performance Contracting, bringing together the needs from all actors involved in enhancing the building stock. Through EBENTO, citizens will increase their implication in building energy efficiency enhancement, and both public institutions and energy communities will be able to identify potential energy efficiency improvements in residential housing stock, with SMEs and ESCOs support. Furthermore, with EBENTO platform, new business models for optimizing the financial (and, indirectly, other) resources available will be validated: • EBENTO will explore the best financing and collaboration schemes to set up energy services. • EBENTO will study how to enhance current Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) for Demand Side Mechanism (DSM) services and what kind of investment options (grants, loans…) can be implemented to increase the number and impact of energy efficiency projects in the city/region • By using digital tools, EBENTO will gather data from EPCs, financial schemes and energy savings to give to the citizens the required trust for investing in new solutions, and to companies the relevant information to reduce costs and easily replicate the work developed. EBENTO will ensure the exchange of relevant information between the different actors, making the renovation process cost-efficient and easy to operate and replicate. The platform will collect data related to performance contracts and guarantees, devices monitoring, energy savings, building information modelling, users’ opinions and comfort levels, among others.