We are currently seeing a deceleration of renewable energy growth in Europe. This is partly attributed to the challenges for financing renewable energy projects. Reduced access to conventional financing options over the past few years has triggered innovative financing schemes to emerge, with crowdfunding attracting a lot of attention. CrowdFundRES recognises the vast potential of crowdfunding for financing renewable energy projects. The project has been developed for and in cooperation with the three target groups: 1) Renewable energy project developers whose access to financing is getting more challenging 2) The part of the public that has an interest in investing even very small amounts of their savings in renewable energy projects 3) Crowdfunding platforms who act as intermediaries facilitating the financial transaction between the public and the project developers. The overall objective of the proposed project is to contribute to the acceleration of the renewable energy growth in Europe by unleashing the potential of crowdfunding for financing renewable energy projects. In order to achieve this, the work has been structured for achieving the following objectives: 1. Gain a deep understanding of the public’s perception of crowdfunding 2. Analyse the challenges faced by the application of crowdfunding for renewable energy projects in Europe 3. Develop guidelines that support easier, more effective and wider accepted practices in crowdfunding renewable energy projects 4. Apply the guidelines and review them based on practical experience 5. Improve the market and regulatory framework 6. Promote the crowdfunding concept and its advantages among those who could contribute or raise funds

Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) is currently an expansive market. Market analysts estimate a compound annual growth rate of 18,7% and a total of 5,4 GW installed worldwide between 2013 and 2019. One of the main drivers for BIPV market growth in the EU is the increasingly demanding legislation related to energy performance in buildings. The large potential for energy savings in buildings led the EU Commission to adopt the 2010/31/EU Directive on the energy performance of buildings with the objective that all new buildings are Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) by 2020. Renewable energy technologies, and in particular the integration of photovoltaic systems in the building environment offer many possibilities to play a key role within the NZEB scenario. Despite this favorable framework for BIPV technology market uptake, initial estimations of BIPV market growth have been subsequently overestimated in the past few years. A series of demands from the stakeholders which have not been properly addressed by the BIPV value chain are the cause for this deviation. These key requirements are mainly related to the flexibility in design and aesthetics considerations, lack of tools integrating PV and building performance, demonstration of long-term reliability of the technology, compliance with legal regulations, smart interaction with the grid and cost effectiveness. Within this context: The objective of PVSITES project is to drive BIPV technology to a large market deployment by demonstrating an ambitious portfolio of building-integrated solar technologies and systems, giving a forceful, reliable answer to the market requirements identified by the industrial members of the consortium in their day-to-day activity. High impact demonstration and dissemination actions will be accomplished in terms of cost-effective renewable generation, reduction of energy demands and smart energy management.

The current electric energy distribution grid—based mainly on alternating current (AC)—has served us for over a century. Transporting energy generated at large power stations over long distances to a distributed network of consumers. It is starting to show its shortcomings due to a rise in local generation with renewable energy sources and the essentially direct current (DC) nature of many modern electric loads. Modern grids need to deal with two-way energy flows, local intermittent generation from renewables and local energy storage in stationary batteries. Medium voltage distribution microgrids using DC instead of AC hold the promise to address the shortcomings of the AC main grid. There are several initiatives in low voltage secondary distribution grids, and DC-POWER is expanding their concepts into the medium voltage range. We propose the D3Bus, a bipolar DC bus operating at ±1.5 kV. Compared to standard 3-phase 400V AC distribution the D3Bus can reduce distribution energy losses by over 90%, reduce downtime, equipment cost, and space requirements while increasing sustainability. DC-POWER demonstrates, tests and validates the D3 Bus concept in two operational pilots: One powering an industrial-scale hydrogen electrolyser stack at 2 MW power, and one powering a new data centre with up to 500 kW installed IT power. Both pilots include sizeable solar PV arrays (200 kW), while the data centre also includes a directly coupled DC UPS solution. In order to realise these pilots, DC-POWER develops several DC-DC converters, an AC active frontend, as well as system protection components and a power/energy management system. The D3Bus is intended as a first stepping-stone towards standardization of MVDC distribution microgrids. It is such industry-wide standards that will enable and accelerate the adaptation of the electricity distribution system towards the energy demands of the future and net zero.