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.

HEAVENN is a large-scale demo project addressing the requirements of the call, by bringing together core elements: production, distribution, storage and local end-use of H2 into a fully-integrated and functioning “H2 valley” (H2V), that can serve as a blueprint for replication across Europe and beyond. The proposed concept is based on the deployment & integration of existing & planned project clusters across 6 locations in the Northern Netherlands, namely Eemshaven, Delfzijl, Zuidwending, Emmen, Hoogeveen and Groningen, with a total initial investment of 88 M EUR. The main goal is to make use of green hydrogen across the entire value chain, while developing replicable business models for wide-scale commercial deployment of H2 across the entire regional energy system. HEAVENN aims to maximize the integration of abundant RES resource available in the region, both onshore (wind and solar) and offshore wind, using H2 as: (i) a storage medium to manage intermittent and constrained renewable inputs in the electricity grid; and (ii) an energy vector for further integration of renewable inputs and decarbonisation across other energy sectors beyond electricity, namely industry, heat and transportation. The project facilitates the deployment of 11 HFC end-user applications across the project clusters, while ensuring the interconnection between them. This will be delivered by facilitating the deployment of key transport & distribution gas infrastructure to deliver green H2 from supply to the end-user sites. In this way HEAVENN will demonstrate the coupling the existing electricity and gas infrastructures at scale, to decarbonize industry, power, transport and heat across the entire region. The scale of the deployment delivered by HEAVENN is sufficient to achieve by itself significant economies of scale & improved business models across the entire value chain.

EPHYRA will demonstrate the integration of a first-of-its-kind renewable hydrogen production facility at industrial scale in South-eastern Europe by employing an improved electrolysis technology, at a scale of 30 MW. The large-scale electrolysis will be integrated with industrial operations within MOH’s Corinth Refinery, one of the top refineries in Europe and the largest privately-owned industrial complex in Greece. It will be operated for at least 2 years under commercial conditions and will supply renewable hydrogen to the refinery’s processes and external end-users. The industrially integrated renewable hydrogen production will be developed around a circular economy, industrial symbiotic approach, as the electrolyser will be coupled with (i) renewable electricity production, (ii) renewable electricity storage, (iii) an innovative waste heat harvesting technology, (iv) water use environmental optimisation, (v) valorisation of produced oxygen in current MOH Refinery operations, (vi) a digital twin and (vii) a dedicated energy management system. EPHYRA will contribute to all electrolysis technology KPIs as detailed in Clean Hydrogen Partnership SRIA objectives. Therefore, the project will demonstrate its reliability for green hydrogen production at the lowest possible cost thus enabling the EU renewable hydrogen economy, industry decarbonisation and zero-emission fuels uptake. EPHYRA will be implemented by a strong consortium with robust research, innovation and industrial capabilities, able to successfully deliver the project within time, budget and detail objectives. The aim of EPHYRA is to enhance European synergies on the globally expanding hydrogen market and build a unique value proposition on industrial symbiotic renewable hydrogen production.

This is the proposal of EEN Nortern Netherlands for the H2020 workpackage 4 for the year 2019. SMEs in the Northern Netherlands still lag behind on internationalisation and innovation in comparison with most other regions in the Netherlands. Export intensity is still below national average, as well as innovation expenditure and the use of EU funding. The economic outlook is that the Northern Netherlands will grow considerably less than average. This proves the need for support for the Northern Netherlands SMEs to realize economic growth. One means of achieving economic growth is internationalisation, which is covered by our COSME 2019 proposal. Another is focus on Innovation. The proposal at hand describes the two main objectives for the support focused on innovation: 1) Continuing the Key Account Management for the beneficiaries of the SME instrument in the North of the Netherlands; 2) Continuing the EEN services for the Enhancement of the Innovation Management Capacity of SMEs in the Northern Netherlands. Specific attention will be given to the management of these two services and to the organisation of smart signposting of clients within the consortium. The consortium partners already have many contact moments with SMEs in the region and due to this project, the advice and support given during these moments can be increased. The consortium aims to assist at least eleven SMEs from the North of the Netherlands region. We expect to deliver our KAM services to one company and the EIMC services to ten companies. Given the limited number of SME Instrument Grants, the synergy with the COSME programme and the client journey, we feel it’s more effective to focus more on the EIMC services. We expect that investing more time in the EIMC services is also the best way to also promote the SME Instrument. We trust this will result in more SME Instrument applications and also more grants in the longer run.