Large scale deployment of renewable energy (RE) is key to comply with the GHG emissions reduction set by the COP21 agreement. Despite cost competitive in many settings, RE diffusion remains limited largely due to its variability. This works as a major barrier to RE’s integration in electricity networks as knowledge of power output and demand forecasting beyond a few days remains poor. To help solve this problem, S2S4E will offer an innovative service to improve RE variability management by developing new research methods exploring the frontiers of weather conditions for future weeks and months. The main output of S2S4E will be a user co-designed Decision Support Tool (DST) that for the first time integrates sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) climate predictions with RE production and electricity demand. To support the dissemination of climate services, a pilot of the DST will be developed in two steps. The first will draw on historical case studies pointed as relevant by energy companies - e.g. periods with an unusual climate behaviour affecting the energy market. The second step will improve probabilistic S2S real-time forecasts built up into the DST and assess their performances in real life decision-making in these companies. This process will be co-designed with consortium’s partners which represent different needs and interests in terms of regions, RE sources (wind, solar and hydro) and electricity demand. Besides the partners, S2S4E will engage other users from the energy sector as well as other business areas and research communities to further explore DST application and impact. As a result, DST will enable RE producers and providers, electricity network managers and policy makers to design better informed S2S strategies able to improve RE integration, business profitability, electricity system management, and GHG emissions’ reduction. The long-term objective is to make the European energy sector more resilient to climate variability and extreme events.

LiCORNE aims to establish the first-ever Li supply chain in Europe. The goal is to increase the European Li processing and refining capacity for producing battery-grade chemicals from ores, brines, tailings and off-specification battery cathode materials. This supply chain encompasses five large primary resource owners (including one of the world leader in Li production) having resources of ~7.8 Mt lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), in which 2.7 Mt LCE are located in Europe. The European primary resources that are considered in LiCORNE would be enough to supply ~3000 GWh of batteries (i.e., ~10 years to the expected 300 GWh/year production capacity in Europe by 2030). Additionally, the value chain includes a cathode manufacturer who will be able to reuse valuable Li, Co and Ni that will be recycled from waste cathode material, and one producer and distributor of battery-grade Li-chemicals. LiCORNE will investigate 14 different groundbreaking technologies that have been selected for their potential to operate at low CAPEX and OPEX, low carbon footprint, flexibility and industrial scalability. Those technologies are led by 8 top R&D centers in Europe to tackle the main bottlenecks in Li processing and recovery. During 2.5 years, R&D partners will investigate those technologies and bring their TRL from 2 to 4. After this phase, and guided by LCA and LCCA, the most promising technologies will be selected for upscaling to TRL5. During this phase a prototype system will be constructed and demonstrated at TRL5 to produce ~1 kg of battery-grade Li-chemicals (i.e., LiOH∙H2O, Li2CO3 or Li-metal) from ores, brines, tailings and waste cathode material, with the recycling of Co and Ni from the latter. Results will be communicated and disseminated to a wide range of stakeholders and a first business model for a full and optimized Li supply chain in Europe will be established based on the results of the project and cost of Li produced.

The main mission for EPISODE is to develop a non-lithium battery technology based on abundant available low-cost materials, with attractive energy density and power metrics (close to that of LFP-based Li-ion batteries counterparts), that are durable (> 15 years and > 5,000 cycles), have a high round-trip efficiency (>95%), are non-toxic, non-critical, intrinsically safe and recyclable. A further aspect of this mission is that the production processes for the anode, cathode, electrolyte solutions and binders as well as cell production will be sustainable, energy-efficient and demonstrated at industrial mass manufacturing scale. Combining all of this leads to a non-lithium modular battery system with favourable CAPEX (< 150 €/kW storage capacity), OPEX (approx. 0.03 €/kWh/cycle) and carbon footprint (<100kgCO2eq/kWh), enabling energy storage applications, ranging from domestic installations (multiple units of 6.2 kWh/unit to be demonstrated in the project with projections towards large utility installations of multiple MWh. As a consequence, this will establish a European-based, globally competitive battery supply- and value chain that supports economic prosperity and the net-zero transition. The integrated material-manufacturing and sustainability assessment approach in EPISODE will transform the existing (Li) battery manufacturing process into a sustainable one to meet the future needs of the sustainable and resilient EU battery industry. In EPISODE, the project objectives will be achieved by a strong alliance among physics, chemistry and materials science researchers from both academia and industry (ARK, UPC, ISE), academic battery cell producers (CID, WMG) and industrial module manufacturers (FAAM), end-users (EGP, EnelX, EnBW, Senec) as well as expertise in environmental assessments (UAH, KIT) and experts in project management and communication and dissemination activities (UNR).