Project Ô intends to demonstrate approaches and technologies to drive an integrated and symbiotic use of water within a specific area, putting together the needs of different users and waste water producers, involving regulators, service providers, civil society, industry and agriculture. The project seeks to apply the pillars of integrated water management (IWM) as a model for “water planning” (akin to spatial planning) and to demonstrate low cost, modular technologies that can be easily retrofitted into any water management infrastructure at district/plant level, hence enabling even small communities and SMEs to implement virtuous practices. Technologies and planning instruments complement each other as the first make possible the second and the latter can provide as example or even prescribe the former (and similar technologies allowing virtuous water use practices). Indeed the technologies support the regulators in implementing policy instruments, as foreseen by IWM, for convincing stakeholders (like developers and industry) to implement water efficiency strategies and could include instruments for e.g. rewarding virtuous behaviours (for example: advantageous water tariffs), planning regulations that award planning consent more swiftly or even prescribe the use of water from alternative sources (including recycling). Project Ô has in summary the overall objective of providing stakeholders (everybody using or regulating the use of water in an area) with a toolkit that enables them to plan the use of and utilise the resource water whatever its history and provenance, obtaining significant energy savings in terms of avoided treatment of water and waste water and release of pressure (quantity abstracted and pollution released) over green water sources. This overall objective will be demonstrated in up to four sites each in different Countries of Europe and in Israel, involving industries, aquaculture and agriculture as well as local authorities of different sizes.

Being flexible, easily foldable and recyclable, paper as substrate and functional part of portable, wireless, and/or disposable electronic devices is emerging as a promising approach to develop sustainable electronics contributing to reduce the electronic waste. INNPAPER is a use-case driven project aiming at providing a configurable common electronic platform based on multifunctional paper. To develop innovative paper manufacturing approaches, including (Nano)cellulose functionalization, to generate paper with tailor-made properties (e.g. (super)hydrophobicity/philicity, conductivity, etc) at surface and bulk level will be the first key challenge of the project. Based on this progress, a configurable common platform comprising a variety of paper-based devices (printed battery, electrochromic display, antenna and hybrid electronic circuit), where the paper will act as substrate and active component, will be developed. The common platform will be the basis for the subsequent manufacturing of a variety of use-cases covering different industrial sectors, in particular packaging and Point of Care (PoC) assays (security, food traceability, medical). The paper-based platforms will be manufactured in existing printing and hybrid manufacturing pilot-lines located at the partners facilities, providing not only a high impact paper-based electronics business case but also an open-access pilot line network to the EU after the project. An eco-design strategy including sustainability and re-use issues will be implemented. Exploitation and Business plan to ensure the profitable use of the pilot-lines in short and long term timescale and the commercialization of the resulting paper-based platforms will be elaborated. The accomplishment of the INNPAPER targets will support the EU industry in the emergence of internet of things, consolidating the paper making and wood-harvesting industries and positioning EU in the environmental management of electronic waste.

While it’s widely accepted that energy efficiency investments are not only necessary from an environmental point of view but also convenient in terms of expected return and payback times, it’s still difficult to attract private finance that can boost the energy transition process on a large scale in the retail sector and supermarkets is just a good example of it. Of the total operating costs of a supermarket, which include purchasing merchandise, employee salaries, and more, energy can account for between 10% and 15%, which is huge for a business that operates such tight margins. SUPER-HEERO develops an innovative collaborative and scalable financial scheme based on i) Citizen financing through a crowd-funding/co-operative scheme building upon the loyalty programs in the supermarkets and implementing gamification strategies, ii) Strategic partnerships with ESCOs and utilities to support financially the energy efficiency investments on the basis of the benefits of engaging a large base of energy users through the supermarket co-operative program, iii_ Engagement of technology providers in performance-based schemes that allow them to profit from their products/technologies through innovative circular business models (e.g. leasing, Technology as a service) while making the technology more affordable and accessible for supermarket and similar business. In this way, SUPER-HEERO provides an instrument for supermarkets to access the much-needed funding that allows implementation of energy efficiency strategies and unlocks the potential of energy savings over 40%, which in turn would materialize in economic, social and environmental gains.

Application of Solar Thermal Energy to Processes (ASTEP) will create a new innovative Solar Heating for Industrial Processes (SHIP) concept focused on overcoming the current limitations of these systems. This solution is based on modular and flexible integration of two innovative designs for the solar collector (SunDial) and the Thermal Energy Storage (TES, based on Phase Change Materials, PCM) integrated via a control system which will allow flexible operation to maintain continuous service against the unpredictable nature of the solar source and partially during night operation. ASTEP will demonstrate its capability to cover a substantial part of the heat demand of the process industry at temperatures above 150 ºC and for latitudes where current designs are not able to supply it. Its modularity and compactness will also enable easy installation and repair with reduced space requirements, while most of components can be sourced locally. The ASTEP`s process integration will allow full compatibility with the existing systems of potential end-users of SHIP. These aspects will provide a very competitive solution to substitute fossil fuel consumption. The developed solar concept will be tested at two industrial sites to prove the objective’s target of TRL5. Life Cycle Analysis will be included to validate and demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed technologies. The first Industrial Site of the proposal is the world’s leading steel company, ArcelorMittal, with a heating demand above 220 ºC for a factory located at a latitude of 47.1 N (Iasi, Romania). The second site is the dairy company MANDREKAS, located at a latitude of 37.93 N (Corinth, Greece) with a heating demand for steam at 175 ºC and a cooling demand at 5 ºC. These test locations will validate the ASTEP solution for a substantial part of the potential requirements of industrial heating and cooling demand of the European Union (EU28), which is estimated at approximately 72 TWh per year

Pro-Enrich will develop a flexible biorefinery approach capable of processing a range of agricultural residues (rapeseed meal, olives, tomatoes and citrus fruits) in response to the increasing global demand for alternative sources of protein and phenolic product streams, tailored to the cross sectoral requirements of industry. Pro-Enrich will optimise existing biomass fractionation technologies and validate novel extraction approaches beyond the current state of the art (from TRL2 through to TRL 4/5) to isolate and purify proteins, polyphenols, dietary fibres and pigments. The products being targeted are food ingredients, pet food, cosmetics and adhesives. These will be developed through an iterative process of feedstock mapping, laboratory process development, functionality/performance testing of samples by industry and pilot upscaling. Pro-Enrich gathers the expertise of 16 partners from 7 countries, covering the entire biorefinery value chain and consisting of 8 SMEs, 5 large enterprises, 2 RTOs and 1 university. The project facilitates supply chain building across different sectors, including biomass production and logistics; materials handling and processing, through to end-users. The project will engage and collaborate with key industry stakeholders from farming and biomass supply, processors and brand name owners. Pro-Enrich produces detailed life-cycle, socio-economic and safety assessments to facilitate policy and decision-making by industry and the EU, inform and guide consumer acceptance and assist with regulatory compliance. The outcome of Pro-Enrich will have a huge economical impact on the involved partners especially the industries and generate a large number of new job positions. However, the impact goes beyond the consortium by contributing to the BBI’s strategy for zero-waste processing in the biobased products sector, by addressing technical, commercial and environmental impact across the whole supply chain.