The main objective of POWERPOOR is to develop support programmes/schemes for energy poor citizens and encourage the use of alternative financing schemes (e.g. establishing energy communities / cooperatives, crowd funding). POWERPOOR will facilitate experience and knowledge sharing, as well as the implementation of small-scale energy efficiency interventions and the installation of renewable energy sources, increasing the active participation of citizens. Pilot energy poor support programmes/schemes will be designed, developed and implemented in eight countries across Europe, led by a network of certified Energy Supporters and Energy Communities Mentors. The Energy Supporters / Mentors will support (more than 22,000) energy poor households to plan and implement energy efficiency interventions, as well as participate in joint energy initiatives. Energy poor citizens will be engaged through various planned activities, such as Info Days, Local Energy Poverty Offices, and ICT-driven tools (Energy Poverty Mitigation Toolkit). The establishment of the Stakeholders Liaison Groups will also facilitate the engagement and the provision of support to energy poor households. Guidelines on how to tackle energy poverty in Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans will also be developed. Based on the experience gained and the lessons learnt from implementing POWERPOOR, EU policy recommendations and 8 National Roadmaps will be elaborated, so that policy makers at all governance levels can learn from the project. The project results will be broadly disseminated, and synergies will be pursued with global and EU initiatives, such as the EU Energy Poverty Observatory and the (EU and Global) Covenant of Mayors on Energy and Climate. The participation of networks in the Consortium will strengthen the dissemination and exploitation of POWERPOOR outputs across Europe during and beyond the project implementation.

Due to the growing demand of energy in the South-Mediterranean region, a shift towards renewable energies and notably solar energy is being promoted by the governments and the energy industry. One of the main obstacles for this development is the lack of qualified staff. The Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the region have launched training programmes in the field, but two main aspects still need to be addressed: improving a multidisciplinarity approach and links to businesses and applied research. Resources and international collaboration are needed in order to improve the quality of the training programmes and to ensure that they are linked to the latest research findings and requirements of the industry.In the larger context of modernisation, accessibility and internationalization of HEI systems in the Partner Countries, the MEDSOL project aims at enhancing the capacity of HEIs in Morocco and Egypt to deliver master-level programmes in solar energy. More specifically, it seeks to improve the quality of the currently existing training programmes, teaching methods and laboratory equipment for practice-based research. The work is conducted through close cooperation, sharing know-how and good practices between Programme and Partner Country HEIs as well as partners from business and applied research sectors. The proposed key activities are: 1. Improving existing curricula at the partnering HEIs in Morocco and Egypt; 2. Capacity building of HEI staff in Morocco and Egypt via a mobility scheme; 3. Updating training facilities at HEIs in Morocco and Egypt; 4. Providing opportunities for mobility for students in form of study/traineeship periods at the partnering institutions in the EU, Morocco and Egypt; 5. Disseminating project results and best practices in form of workshops and publications; 6. Promoting continued long-term collaboration, e.g. developing Double Master Degrees between the partners.

The overall vision of FORTESIE is to design, demonstrate, validate and replicate innovative renovation packages in the building industry with Smart Performance-Based guarantees and financing, aiming at Efficient, Sustainable and Inclusive Energy (ESIE) use to accelerate the Renovation Wave in Europe. The renovation packages will combine state-of-the-art construction materials and technologies components (prefabricated facades, BIPV, heat pumps, etc.), innovative digital technologies for measurement and verification, and attractive financing (e.g. contractual frameworks for smart performance guarantees, financing mechanisms, engagement techniques, green-euros, etc.), to raise the overall EPC value proposition. The renovation packages will be tailored to specific target groups needs and optimised to improve the ESIE performance considering energy, CO2 and comfort. Each package will be demonstrated and validated in real life use cases and customised for replication in all other partner countries for immediate market take-up. Methodologies from Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) will be adopted for: a. the creation of collaborative business models that boost the Renovation Wave by considering all stakeholders’ value and revenue streams, b. novel incentivisation and behavioural change models that aim to stimulate long term engagement with focused interactions to adopt green behaviour c. the incorporation of a digital currency, green-euro, (€G) for financing, rewarding and creating an inclusive /collective narrative in the fight against climate change d. the collection of feedback for recommendations to policy and business stakeholders, e. Mapping and understanding the complex interplay between the different stakeholders to deliver an engagement strategy across the value chain.These demonstrations will potentially constitute the green-euro as a retail Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), hence revolutionising the financing of renovation approaches. An online marketplace, will be offering first level advice, directing consumers through the value chain of stakeholders and facilitating access to these “packaged” renovation services.

PVSmile aims to transform passive utility-scale PV components and systems into flexible, community-level assets that are fully integrated into energy grids. By leveraging cutting-edge ICTs alongside decentralized, sharing-economy and community-driven models, PVSmile will deliver data-driven, value-added energy and non-energy services to key stakeholders across the energy value chain (network operators, aggregators, ESCOs) and the PV sector (manufacturers, developers, O&M providers). This vision will be realized through: Interactive SSH-driven frameworks & Multi-Level Governance Models to promote inclusive energy communities, increasing citizen participation especially among underrepresented groups; Smart Grid Readiness Index for Energy Communities & MCDA tools to build consensus among diverse stakeholders; Inclusive & circular economy business models, coupled with incentive mechanisms; PV-centric Data Space adaptation, integrating DLT/Blockchain, cybersecurity mechanisms and semantic interoperability to facilitate seamless, secure, and standardized data exchange; Smart hierarchical control strategies at different levels (PV converters, inverters, substations) supported by smart power electronics, sensors and intelligent systems; Data-driven applications & advanced components for PV optimal planning, construction, operation & EoL management; Advanced AI/ML tools, flexibility modelling services & an Energy Data Space-compliant DLT/Blockchain marketplace to enable PV-community orchestration and P2P asset trading; GenAI-based Digital Twin for hierarchical coordination of energy communities with the grid. PVSmile focuses on international collaboration across the Mediterranean region, with demonstration and replication activities in 9 countries (3 Front Runners, 3 EU & 3 Non-EU Early Adopters). The Leadership Programme and policy recommendations will further support scalability, ensuring the long-term success of community-integrated PV systems across different regions.

The decentralization of the energy system coupled with advancements on IoT, big data, AI and distributed computing are creating a new momentum for exploiting data-driven services to improve buildings energy efficiency. Despite a large number of buildings data hubs and vocabularies have become available, some barriers hamper the exploitation of that potential, such as the lack of interoperability among heterogeneous static (e.g.BIM), building automation and IoT dynamic data sources and ontologies, and the lack of interoperable big data architectures fully tailored to smart buildings. In that respect MATRYCS will i) deliver an open Reference Architecture for Smart Energy Efficient Buildings, which aligns BDVA SRIA, FIWARE architecture, SAREF, HAYSTACK, and BRICK schema vocabularies (among the many others), and enable B2B sovereignty preserving multi-party data exchange, while providing full interoperability of big data enablers with smart buildings standards and addressing privacy and cyber-security constraints ii) upscale a number of TRL 5-6 technology enablers, such as sovereignty-preserving DLT/off-chain data governance, big data pipeline orchestration, IoT/edge AI-based federated learning and visual analytics and deploy them within the TRL 7-8 MATRYCS workbench iii) deliver a TRL8 open modular big data cloud analytic toolbox as front-end for one-stop-shop analytics services development iv) validate such framework through the deployment of analytics services focusing on digital building twins, improved buildings operation, building infrastructure design, EU/national policy assessment for energy efficiency investments on 11 large scale pilots by different stakeholders (facility managers, ESCOs, financial institutions, construction companies, municipalities, electricity grid and DH operators, policy makers) v) setup the BDA Alliance as a vibrant data-driven ecosystem for attracting new data hubs and SME service providers, enabling thus EU-wise take-up and replication