SophiA system enables African people access to off-grid carbon-neutral electricity, heating and cooling of food and medicine as well as safe and clean drinking water, increasing quality of life in a sustainable way. Broad implementation of SophiA systems will bring vast environmental, economic, social and especially health benefits. It will be demonstrated at 4 rural health facilities, i.e. where aid is most needed, in 4 different climate regions, by providing sustainable solutions appropriate to the African context. The innovative, affordable and efficient SophiA renewable energy solutions will support Africa in achieving sustainable development growth and economic transformation. SophiA systems will be developed by a multi-national interdisciplinary team of 13 partners well balanced between academia and industry, and Africa and Europe. The African manufactured SophiA systems will for the first time provide an innovative solution based on low GWP natural refrigerants that covers cooling in 4 temperature ranges: air conditioning for surgery / intensive care unit, for medicine/food at +5 ?C, blood plasma (-30?C), sensitive medication (e. g. Covid-19 vaccine) at -70 ?C, in a cascade refrigeration system with highly efficient thermal energy storage. Based on the results from 4 field tests, a modular containerized version will remain operational as demonstrators for the purpose of showrooms after the project. A training guidebook will enable local companies to build SophiA on site, as to set up local value-chains in different African countries creating numerous jobs. Capacity building and appropriate financing solutions will be ensured by the involvement of private and public European and African organisations. The SME-partners from Europe will have the opportunity to generate growth by entering new market segments. Everflo as main partner driving SophiA commercialization ensures to transfer that enormous market of over 100 B ? (SOM) to economic value for EU and Africa.

The CryoHub innovation project will investigate and extend the potential of large-scale Cryogenic Energy Storage (CES) and will apply the stored energy for both cooling and energy generation. By employing Renewable Energy Sources (RES) to liquefy and store cryogens, CryoHub will balance the power grid, while meeting the cooling demand of a refrigerated food warehouse and recovering the waste heat from its equipment and components. The intermittent supply is a major obstacle to the RES power market. In reality, RES are fickle forces, prone to over-producing when demand is low and failing to meet requirements when demand peaks. Europe is about to generate 20% of its required energy from RES by 2020, so that the proper RES integration poses continent-wide challenges. The Cryogenic Energy Storage (CES), and particularly the Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES), is a promising technology enabling on-site storage of RES energy during periods of high generation and its use at peak grid demand. Thus, CES acts as Grid Energy Storage (GES), where cryogen is boiled to drive a turbine and to restore electricity to the grid. To date, CES applications have been rather limited by the poor round trip efficiency (ratio between energies spent for and retrieved from energy storage) due to unrecovered energy losses. The CryoHub project is therefore designed to maximise the CES efficiency by recovering energy from cooling and heating in a perfect RES-driven cycle of cryogen liquefaction, storage, distribution and efficient use. Refrigerated warehouses for chilled and frozen food commodities are large electricity consumers, possess powerful installed capacities for cooling and heating and waste substantial amounts of heat. Such facilities provide the ideal industrial environment to advance and demonstrate the LAES benefits. CryoHub will thus resolve most of the above-mentioned problems at one go, thereby paving the way for broader market prospects for CES-based technologies across Europe.

Supermarkets comprise various technical disciplines: buildings, heating-, cooling- and ventilations systems. Over one million supermarkets across Europe require ca. 4% of the total electricity. New integrated technologies for more efficient supermarkets are now available and efficiency improvements up to 30% have already been demonstrated. These heating and cooling technologies offer in the mid-term both environmental and economic benefits. The uptake of such efficient solutions is mainly hindered by non-technological market barriers. SuperSmart tackles different barrier categories, both short-term (awareness and knowledge) and long-term (organizational, political, social), even though an immediate impact on the sector will be expected to come already from the removal of the short-term hindrances. The purpose of the SuperSmart hub is to establish a knowledge transfer and promotion platform devoted to the supermarket sector to educate/train and crosslink stakeholders of various backgrounds in such a way that the uptake of energy-efficient heating and cooling solutions is made possible. Specific objectives pursued by the hub for the supermarket sector contain: - Reduce the environmental impact and primary energy demand - Support the introduction of a new EU Ecolabel for Supermarkets - Determine and remove challenges hindering the implementation of eco-energy supermarkets - Raise the expertise level of the different decision makers (non –technical and tech. staff) related to energy usage of equipment and the benefit of integrated systems. Encourage to supply energy (heating&cooling) to nearby business units or local grids. - Conduct direct communication among R&D organizations, suppliers, end users and governmental bodies on potential legislative initiatives Active participation at 10 conferences & fairs and 5 dedicated workshops will disseminate the information beside trainings, and the online end-user expert panels, manufacture panels and innovation panels.

Large parts of sub-Saharan Africa have no or only limited access to the electricity grid. Therefore, many farmers cannot adequately cool their product. This results in an enormous loss and waste of food, which is responsible for more than 10% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Cooling the food by inefficiently using generators on fossil fuels – the most common alternative – is not climate friendly either. AGRI-COOL will address both problems with a containerized solution in which food can be stored and cooled. It combines the use of photovoltaic technology, thermal energy storage by phase change materials, chillers, and smart control strategies to offer an affordable, scalable and climate friendly solution. The AGRI-COOL system will be demonstrated in rural communities in South Africa, Cape Verde, Somalia, and Zimbabwe to showcase its adaptability to different climatic conditions. A life cycle assessment following the cradle-to-grave approach will be conducted to show the system’s impact on environment and Paris targets compared with competing approaches. A comprehensive market and business strategy will be developed for adoption of the system after the project. Training programs for farmers, technicians, and engineers that are tailored to local conditions will ensure that the system can be installed, operated, and maintained locally. Lastly, an advanced course for third party engineers from various African countries will be organized on the design, customization, and broader economic and social aspects of the system. AGRI-COOL is going to empower rural African communities and industries by enhancing food security, reducing waste and fostering economic growth while contributing to achieve the African countries’ targets of the Paris Agreement. A balanced consortium with about the same share of person months and budget for African and European partners ensures that African problems are tackled by solutions tailored to African conditions.