The HEU project OpenMod4Africa aims to develop an open energy system modelling toolbox for Africa, the OM4A toolbox. OpenMod4Africa applies the toolbox on two large regions, the Western and the Eastern Africa. This hop on project expands the scope from the two regions and enhances the project's reach to the Northern Africa region by, incorporating Tunisia as a real-world case for the toolbox. Main objectives are: 1. Improve the robustness and relevance of the OM4A toolbox. 2: Enhance energy system modelling capacity among Tunisian researchers and academia in general and about the OM4A toolbox in particular. 3: Provide new knowledge about possible alternatives for development of the Tunisian energy system towards a cost-efficient, secure and low carbon future including possibilities for export of green energy to Europe by applying the OM4A toolbox. 4: Actively involve Tunisian politicians and decision makers in development of the pathways for the Tunisian energy system. 5: Contribute to develop the African energy system modelling community - the OpenMod4Africa's Permanent Network 6: Pave the way for a wider use of the results in the North African region by developing replication strategies. The project will pave the way for a scientific, holistic, and robust approach to planning and developing the future energy and power system in Tunisia in and beyond the project. The project involves various stakeholders, including government entities to create a unified strategy for energy planning. This multi-sectoral collaboration enhances the likelihood of effective implementation and continuous updates to energy plans. The new OpenMod4Africa partner, Ecole Nationale d’Ingénieurs de Monastir (ENIM) from Tunisia, will gain experience in EU research projects and develop network with African and European academic groups which will support future project development and collaboration. The HopOn project will last for the 18 last months of the OpenMod4Africa project period.

OpenMod4Africa aims to develop an open Toolbox populated with state-of-the-art models for analysing long-term pathways to sustainable, secure and competitive energy systems in Africa. The Toolbox will build on EU projects like Open ENTRANCE, Plan4RES and FocusAfrica, and will adapt and further develop open models in accordance with the African context and needs. The models are scalable, and can be applied to cities, industries and countries. Furthermore, a main objective for OpenMod4Africa is capacity building among energy models in academia. Five African universities will be actively involved in adapting models and conducting three regional case studies. The additional capacity and the open Toolbox will enable the universities to train new generations of energy modelling experts for the energy industries in Africa. Three decision-makers will also be engaged, together with a network of energy industries and universities in 25 African countries. These players will be invited to use the Toolbox, and to be involved in training activities. They will also be invited to a permanent network of expertise, which will be developed for further capacity building and collaboration beyond the project. Three case studies will develop energy pathways for rural areas, cities, countries and large regions of countries in Western and Eastern Africa and in Tunisia. The replication strategies will pave the way for further analyses beyond the project. Finally, OpenMod4Africa aims to collaborate with other ongoing initiatives to maximize the impacts of the project and create synergies. The consortium consists of 16 partners and 2 associated partners. Nine partners are African. Important long-term impacts from the three-year project include enabling academia and decision-makers in Africa to conduct their own analyses for the optimal development of their energy system, supplying energy to a much larger share of the population, and establishing a system based upon the abundant share of renewables on the continent.

Mobility electrification plays a critical role in the economy decarbonisation, and we are on the edge of an industrial revolution linked to the massive deployment of the electric vehicle (EV). Their technologies readiness level has significantly increased, and the EV can now replace the thermal vehicle in terms of service provided, supporting the EU decarbonisation effort. Besides the reduction of critical material, and decrease of cost, optimising the lifetime of the EV components is essential to ease their adoption, especially the powertrain sub-components that have the major impact on EV cost and CO2 emissions. A new-generation of diagnostic and prognostic systems for the powertrain will be a game changer to ensure EV adoption, because they will estimate its degradation, anticipate failures, and ease reparability thus extending its lifespan. With significant improvement of sensors, complex modelling and data processing methods such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), predictive maintenance (PdM) has gained a lot of interest in different fields. Development of PdM methods for the sub-components of the EV powertrain (battery, fuel cell, e-motor, power electronics) is at the heart of TEAMING. Thanks to international staff exchanges, TEAMING will significantly improve the different facets of the PdM solution: sensors, modelling, Digital Twins, adapted AI, and Physics-Informed Machine Learning methods are at the centre of the studies and present a major potential in term of innovation. TEAMING will advance PdM system to better diagnose the internal physical phenomena of the different EV powertrain components and optimise their performance, lifetime, safety, and reliability.”