RESPONSE supports the Lighthouse cities of Dijon (FR) and Turku (FI) and their Fellow cities Brussels (BE), Zaragoza (ES), Botosani (RO), Ptolemaida (GR), Gabrovo (BU) and Severodonetsk (UA) to facilitate them deliver positive energy blocks and districts. Through RESPONSE ,the two LHs will achieve a local RES penetration of 11.2 GWh/y, energy savings of 3,090 MWh/y and an emission reduction of 9, 799 tons CO2eq/y within their districts. To achieve this goal, RESPONSE demonstrates 10 Integrated Solutions (ISs), comprising of 86 innovative elements (technologies, tools, methods), that are being monitored with specific impact metrics (KPIs). It attracts the interest of various stakeholders by generating innovative business models enabling the upscale and replication of the solutions forming a validated roadmap for sustainable cities across Europe and beyond. RESPONSE adopts an energy transition strategy, which includes 5 Transformation Axes (TAs), encompassing the 10 ISs. TA#1 focuses on transforming existing and new building stock into Energy Positive and Smart-ready. TA#2 focuses on the decarbonization of the electricity grid and the district heating/cooling systems, supporting fossil-based regions in transition and the development of energy communities. TA#3 proposes grid flexibility strategies and novel storage systems for optimizing energy flows, maximize self-consumption and reduce grid stress. TA#4 links existing CIPs with apps and other digital infrastructure to enable digitalisation of services and connected city ecosystems, integrating also smart e-Mobility to promote the decarbonisation of the mobility sector. TA#5 offers interdisciplinary citizen engagement and co-creation practices putting citizen at the forefront of shaping the cities they live in and towards the development of each city’s 2050 own bold city-vision. Special focus is given to creating resilient and safe cities increasing quality of life and lowering the impacts of climate change.

The FORESIGHT project aims to develop a federated cyber-range solution to enhance the preparedness of cyber-security professionals at all levels and advance their skills towards preventing, detecting, reacting and mitigating sophisticated cyber-attacks. This is achieved by delivering an ecosystem of networked realistic training and simulation platforms that collaboratively bring unique cyber-security aspects from the aviation, smart grid and naval domains. The proposed platform will extend the capabilities of existing cyber-ranges and will allow the creation of complex cross-domain/hybrid scenarios to be built jointly with the IoT domain. Emphasis is given on the design and implementation of realistic and dynamic scenarios that are based on identified and forecasted trends of cyber-attacks and vulnerabilities extracted from cyber-threat intelligence gathered from the dark web; this will enable cyber-security professionals to rapidly adapt to an evolving threat landscape. The development of advanced risk analysis and econometric models will prove to be valuable in estimating the impact of cyber-risks, selecting the most appropriate and affordable security measures, and minimising the cost and time to recover from cyber-attacks. Innovative training curricula, guiding cyber-security professionals to implement and combine security measures using new technologies and established learning methodologies, will be created and employed for training needs; they will be linked to professional certification programs and be supported by learning platforms. Aside from the development of skills, the project aims at a holistic approach to cyber-threat management with the ultimate goal of cultivating a strong security culture. As such, the project puts considerable emphasis on research and development (i.e. research on cyber-threats, development of novel ideas, etc) as the key to increasing training dynamics and awareness methods for exceeding the rate of evolution of cyber-attackers

The smart energy ecosystem constitutes the next technological leap of the conventional electrical grid, providing multiple benefits such as increased reliability, better service quality and efficient utilization of the existing infrastructures. However, despite the fact that it brings beneficial environmental, economic and social changes, it also generates significant security and privacy challenges, as it includes a combination of heterogeneous, co-existing smart and legacy technologies. Based on this reality, the SDN-microSENSE project intends to provide a set of secure, privacy-enabled and resilient to cyberattacks tools, thus ensuring the normal operation of EPES as well as the integrity and the confidentiality of communications. In particular, adopting an SDN-based technology, SDN-microSENSE will develop a three-layer security architecture, by deploying and implementing risk assessment processes, self-healing capabilities, large-scale distributed detection and prevention mechanisms, as well as an overlay privacy protection framework. Firstly, the risk assessment framework will identify the risk level of each component of EPES, identifying the possible threats and vulnerabilities. Accordingly, in the context of self-healing, islanding schemes and energy management processes will be deployed, isolating the critical parts of the network in the case of emergency. Furthermore, collaborative intrusion detection tools will be capable of detecting and preventing possible threats and anomalies timely. Finally, the overlay privacy protection framework will focus on the privacy issues, including homomorphic encryption and anonymity processes

With the evolving threat of climate change and the consequences of industrial accidents to becoming more severe, there is an increasing need for First Responders to access reliable and agile information management systems that offer as higher Situational Awareness and better Common Operational Picture. To match with current trends, the RESPOND-A project aims at developing holistic and easy-to-use solutions for First Responders by bringing together the complementary strengths of its Investigators in 5G wireless communications, Augmented and Virtual Reality, autonomous robot and unmanned aerial vehicle coordination, intelligent wearable sensors and smart monitoring, geovisual analytics and immersive geospatial data analysis, passive and active localisation and tracking, and interactive multi-view 360o video streaming. The synergy of such cutting-edge technological advancements is likely to provide high-end and continuous flows of data, voice and video information to First Responders and their Command & Control Centres for predicting and assessing the various incidents readily and reliably, and saving lives more efficiently and effectively, while maximising the safeguarding of themselves, before, during and after disasters. To this end, RESPOND-A envisions at exercising First Responders for getting familiar with the project technological outcomes, and demonstrating their real-world performance and effectiveness in the classified training facilities of our Responder Partners under hydrometeorological, geophysical and technological disaster scenarios.

DC grids attractiveness has been increased in the last years due to the high proliferation of renewable energy sources together with the increase in DC loads (electronics, LED lighting, electric vehicles, energy storage…). The main drivers behind this paradigm shift are related to the improved efficiency, flexibility, security and reliability DC grids may provide, thus increasing the sustainability of the energy distribution system. However, there is a need for demonstration of DC technologies and grid topologies so that these solutions are able to evolve from a promising solution for the future smart grids to a commercially available technological option. Under this context, TIGON aims to achieve a smooth deployment and integration of intelligent DC-based grid architectures within the current energy system while providing ancillary services to the main network. To do so, TIGON proposes a four-level approach aiming at improving 1) Reliability, 2) Resilience 3) Performance, and 4) Cost Efficiency of hybrid grids through the development of an innovative portfolio of power electronic solutions and software systems and tools focused on the efficient monitoring, control and management of DC grids. These solutions will be demonstrated in two main Demo-Sites located in France and Spain, while additional use cases in the residential and urban railway sectors will act as niche markets for analysing and further solidifying the replication of TIGON developments after the project’s end. TIGON has involved for this purpose a multidisciplinary team of 15 partners from 8 different European Member States with a well-balanced consortium integrated by 7 non-profit entities and 7 companies. This partnership provides the required expertise from fields such as power electronics, cybersecurity, standardisation, etc. to design the solutions proposed within TIGON as well as the industrial capabilities required for the manufacturing, integration and validation of the whole TIGON concept.