Hydropower and storage capacity need to increase to meet the need for renewable and dispatchable power generation. According to IEA, worldwide hydro-power capacity should increase from 1,360 GW in 2021 to 1,563–1,782 GW by 2030 and up to over 2,500 GW in 2050. At the same time, hydropower refurbishment projects must implement modern sustainability standards that preserve biodiversity and contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. The main objective of ReHydro is to demonstrate how European hydropower can be refurbished and modernized to be fit for a leading role in the future power system respecting sustainability requirements and societal needs in a climate change context. A suite of monitoring and digital tools (performance, cavitation, machine health) implemented at demonstration sites will improve hydropower efficiency. Innovative concepts like retrofitting with pumped hydro and hybridization will make hydropower fit for future markets. ReHydro will demonstrate how biodiversity can be improved with new fish-friendly turbines, re-establishment of environmental flows, and monitored using new tools such as eDNA. Smarter use of water resources will also be implemented so that more services can be delivered to the power markets, while multi-purpose use of the water resources for navigation and recreation can be expanded and the ability to mitigate flooding and droughts is strengthened. The results from ReHydro will achieve all the expected outcomes specified in the call. The solutions will give European hydropower industries commercial advantages to utilise the global need for hydropower expansion. It is expected that ReHydro's exploitable results will create 700–1150 new jobs in the manufacturing industry, increasing the global market by 275 mill euros. ReHydro will introduce a new paradigm to boost European leadership and competitiveness in the hydropower industry and provide new sustainable solutions that are replicable at European and global levels.

The project MEASURED aims at developing and demonstrating at TRL7 advanced membrane materials for Pervaporation (PV), Membrane Distillation (MD) and Gas Separation (GS) technologies applied to acrylic ester production, membrane manufacturing and gas separation from a carbon capture & utilization (CCU) stream. PV targets 1 m2 of membrane processing H2O flux > 1.0 kg/m2·hr using a 55-channel tube in the industrial setting of ARKEMA, a stability > 90% over 3 months of testing, resulting in a CAPEX 30% lower compared to current cost - from 2100 €/m2 to 1500 €/m2. MD aims at treating the daily amount of generated wastewater (70 L/h) from the manufacturing facility of PVDF membranes at GVS Spa with energy supply via about 100 Solar/Photovoltaic collectors, showing higher chemical resistance (> 10%), >25% reduction of water footprint, permeability of reused MD for Microfiltration > 500 L/m2·hr·bar. GS prototype will be scaled-up to a membrane area of 1.2 m2/module using a 61-channel tube installed downstream the GAYA methanation unit of Engie, reducing the membrane cost (produced at large scale) from 1944 €/m2 to 795 €/m2 (almost 60%). At the end of the project, the integrated MEASURED technologies will reach a TRL7 demonstration over 20,000 hours operation under (industrial) operational conditions. MEASURED includes a thorough multiscale modelling and simulation techniques including a full Life Cycle Assessment and addresses the societal implications to increase the acceptance and further market readiness. The interdisciplinary consortium – overall 17 participants: 2 SMEs, 7 industries and 8 Universities/research centers – will comprehensively study the development of advanced materials, reactor design and process configuration to identify the most sustainable options from a demonstration, techno-economic and environmental point of view.

AMBHER (Ammonia and MOF based Hydrogen for Europe) is a European project providing a holistic approach to tackle the short and long term energy storage challenges raised by the high degree of electrification our society is aiming for. Firstly, AMBHER is addressing the main societal, economic and technological questions coming together with the use of green ammonia as seasonal renewable energy storage. Simultaneously, AMBHER is developing and demonstrating innovative and cheaper compressed hydrogen storage potentially solving the gap toward local and economically relevant power-to-hydrogen hub. AMBHER will thus increase the number of applications in the energy and transport sectors and the possibilities for success and industrial adoption by key players. For short-term hydrogen storage, novel nanoporous MOFs (Metal Organic Frameworks) of high surface area (>2.500 m2/g) and low cost synthesis will be developed following an original shaping process (3D printing). Furthermore, AMBHER will develop a conformable cryo-vessel that can accommodate stacks of MOF bodies of tailored-made shape. A capacity of 40g/L of usable space at 100 bar is achieved at competitive cost with respect to current high pressure cylinders (600-1.000 euros/kg H2). For long-term storage, advanced materials (both catalysts and membranes) and their combination in an intensified 3D-printed intensified periodic open cell structured reactor will be developed to allow hydrogen storage in the form of ammonia (NH3) in a cost-efficient and resource-effective process at lower temperatures and pressures compared to conventional systems. AMBHER project is validating both short-term and long term solutions at TRL 5 addressing the positioning of the solutions developed in relevant business cases. The project is built around 16 industry and academic leaders in Europe, from 7 different countries. Track record of AMBHER partners proves the synergies and fruitful collaborative nature among all members.

The ongoing energy system digitization is making available an enormous amount of data, paving the way for data sharing-enabled cross-value chain services, which may contribute to system-level increased efficiency and hence facilitate the energy transition. However data sharing in the energy sector is lagging behind, mainly due to lack of trust, privacy breaches risk and business models immaturity. In that respect ENERSHARE will a) deliver a Reference Architecture for a European Energy Data Space, which hybridizes SGAM with IDSA and GAIA-X architectures, by bringing data value chain perspective into the energy one b) evolve interoperability, trust, data value and governance building blocks to TRL 6-7 IDSA-compliant ones, adapt them to energy sector, and deploy: 1) across-energy and cross-sector data enhancement technology enablers and standardizable interfaces and open APIs by leveraging on open Standards (e.g. ETSI Context Broker) and ontologies (e.g. SAREF 2) trust-related connectors, to ensure privacy, confidentiality, cybersecurity-preserving trust, sovereignty and full control of data 3) Blockchain/Smart contract-enriched marketplace for data versus energy assets/services coordination, sharing, exchange, and beyond financial compensation 4) cross-value chain value-added services and Digital Twins, by leveraging on privacy-preserving federated learning c) integrate and deploy them within a Reference Implementation of a European Energy Data Space, which will be demonstrated along 7 pilots and 11 intra-electricity, intra-energy and beyond energy use cases d) co-design SSH-based consumer-centric business models for energy data sharing enabling data beyond-financial value creation and spreading along value chain d) prepare the ground for the European Energy Data Space setup, through alignment with EU-level relevant initiatives (GAIA-X, IDSA, BDVA, ETIP SNET, BRIDGE), contributing to Data Space standardization and boosting a level playing field for data sharing.

Orchestrating an interoperable sovereign federated Multi-vector Energy data space built on open standards and ready for GAia-X The aim of OMEGA-X is to implement a data space (based on European common standards), including federated infrastructure, data marketplace and service marketplace, involving data sharing between different stakeholders and demonstrating its value for real and concrete Energy use cases and needs, while guaranteeing scalability and interoperability with other data space initiatives, not just for energy but also cross-sector. The proposed concept and architecture heavily rely on the approaches adopted by IDSA, GAIA-X, FIWARE, BDVA/DAIRO and SGAM as major EU references regarding data spaces. It will pursue the GAIA-X label, which ensures highest standards on protection, security, transparency, openess and trust, avoids vendor lock-in and restricted to EU countries. • Federated infrastructure for data ingestion. There are a lot of independent platforms for data ingestion/storage, open and private. The goal is to define the minimum interoperability and federation requirements needed for these platforms to adhere to the Energy Data Space and be able to share data in a trusted and secure way. • Data Space Marketplaces. This is the common ground where data, which is already harmonized semantically, is indexed, and referenced, maintaining always the required standards of identity, trust and sovereignty. Using the data space as baseline, a marketplace is implemented for stakeholders to share, use and monetize data and services. Data/service providers will be able to advertise their data/services, and data/service users will be able to discover multiple data sets and services. • Advanced Energy Use Case demonstration. Using all aforementioned layers underneath, 4 use cases families (Renewables, LEC, Electromobility and Flexibiilty) will showcased o prove the value of having a common data space for a particular problem identified by energy stakeholders.