According to United Nations estimations, the world population will reach to 9,7 billion by 2050. Food, energy and water are the three critical resources that must be managed if mankind is going to thrive. With these figures, we will need a 70-100% increase of food supply to maintain the current nutrition levels. Greenhouse farming is a solution to the food worldwide demands as it can increase the food production per acre up to 100% compared to open field agriculture. Although the energy consumption by agriculture made up only 2.8 % of final energy consumption in the EU-281, the global leader in greenhouse production of horticultural products, The Netherlands, has the highest energy consumption in Europe (7.2 %), clearly showing the impact of Greenhouse farming on energy sources. On top of that, the world to which we are currently heading also deserves energetic sustainable solutions to satisfy the growing rate of electrification in the extended populated areas. The global primary energy demand could increase by 50% by the middle of the century. Nowadays, buildings account for nearly 40% of the total energy consumption globally but it is estimated that potential energy savings in buildings could reach between 20% and 40% with new solutions. Solar panels enable energy savings; typically installed on the roof, they do not offer versatility for other type of application, such as windows to allow the entrance of the light inside buildings or greenhouses. Our solution, PanePowerSW is the unique transparent (up to 70%) solar panel glass that generates clean energy through PV technology and more importantly allows the light to shine through greenhouses and commercial buildings windows. Completely aligned with the EU 2020 Energy Strategy, PanePowerSW not only contributes to the energy savings in buildings up to 30%, but also in greenhouses, enabling the growing of the crop while reducing energy costs, quantified in 25% of the total operational costs.

According to United Nations, the world population will reach to 9.7 billion by 2050. Food, energy and water are three critical resources that must be managed if mankind is going to thrive. With these figures, we will need a 70-100% increase of food supply to maintain the current nutrition levels. Greenhouse farming is a solution to the food worldwide demands as it increases the food production per acre up to 100% compared to open field agriculture. However, Greenhouse farming also implies both strong energy cost and gas emission. Indeed, agriculture production accounts for 14% of global energy demand and, in 2004, for 13.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. On top of that, the world primary energy demand could increase by 50% by the middle of the century. Nowadays, buildings account for nearly 40% of the total energy consumption globally but it is estimated that potential energy savings in buildings could reach between 20% and 40% with new solutions. Solar panels enable energy savings; typically installed on the roof, but they do not offer versatility for other type of application, such as windows to allow the entrance of the light inside buildings or greenhouses. Our company has developed PanePower Solar Window (SW). PanePowerSW is a unique transparent (up to 70%) solar panel glass that generates clean energy through PV technology and more importantly allows the light to shine through greenhouses and commercial buildings windows. PanePowerSW contributes to the energy savings in buildings up to 30%, while in greenhouses, it enables the growing of the crop while reducing energy costs, quantified in 25% of the total operational costs. Thanks to Phase II project, we expect to reach the market in 2020, gaining sales of at least 20,000m2 in China and The Netherlands. By 2024, after our geographical expansion, we will reach cumulative revenues of ~€71 M; cumulative profits of €18.72M and, considering the costs of Phase 2 project in €2.13M, a ROI of 3.5.

According to United Nations, the world population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050. Food, energy and water are three critical resources that must be managed for mankind to thrive. With these figures, a 70-100% increase in food supply will be needed to maintain our current nutrition levels. Given that agriculture accounts for 14% of world’s energy usage, 70% of water usage and 11% of CO2 emissions, it is clear that new technology is needed for feeding the world in a sustainable way. Greenhouse farming is as it increases the food production per m2 up to 10x compared to open field agriculture, while using 10x less water. However, Greenhouses require 10x the energy to operate. This is the market opportunity driving our technology development Brite has developed PanePower Solar Window (SW) which is a unique transparent (80%) solar glass panel that generates clean energy. The solar glass combines a nanostructured coating material with silicon solar cell technology to deliver a product ideally suited for greenhouse applications. PanePowerSW contributes in reducing the energy operating costs in greenhouses from 25-28% (of their total operating cost) to near zero depending on climate conditions. The technology enables the growth of almost any kind of crop because it is uniformly transparent over the visible spectrum. Our company has won grants from SME Instrument (Phase 1 and Phase 2), which enabled the technology of PanePowerSW to reach a TRL of 7. By applying to the EIC Accelerator Complementary Blended Finance program, we expect to enter the market in 2021, and sell at least 4 million m2 of solar glass (equivalent to over €160 M of cumulative revenue) by 2026. At our exit (within 5-6 years) we project a return on investment for the EIC equity funding of 7x or higher.

GoodByO seeks at creating a new generation multi-commodities biorefinery based on food waste, biogenic CO2, and bioprocess wastewaters for resource-efficient valorization of sustainable feedstocks. GoodByO will apply this visionary concept at ChainCraft BV bio-plant by valorizing its gaseous and liquid side-streams as zero-cost feedstocks. By exploiting the metabolic diversity of microbial catalysts, four different microbial factories (MF) will be developed: -MF1: open culture chain elongation process for bio-octanoic acid production; -MF2: gas fermentation process for bio-hexanol production from biogas and green H2; -MF3: novel anaerobic photoautotrophic biogas desulfurization process; - MF4: wastewaters-based mixotrophic microalgal process for high-value carotenoids production. The project target relies in the validation of long-term production stability of the developed bioprocesses at TRL5, using real feedstocks, to provide transferable outcomes for further scale-up at higher TRLs. GoodByO will also design an in silico 100% renewable energy system capable of sustaining the fluctuating demand of the integrated biorefinery over time, by adopting biomethanation process as grid-balancing system. GoodByO targets to produce biobased products meeting market requirements at cost-competitive selling price with benchmarks, to boost end users companies in substituting fossil- and palm-oil based products with biobased ones. The successful scale-up and the market penetration of GoodByO processes will strongly increase EU global leadership in the Manufacturing biotech-Industry while advancing CO2-utilizing biotechnologies for developing a carbon-negative economy.

SolarHub’s overall objective is to strengthen connections between and scale-up 5 Greek and Turkish solar energy innovation ecosystems as a single, hybrid, cross-border, and interconnected Solar Energy Excellence Hub with an emphasis on agriculture applications. SolarHub's 4 Specific Objectives (SOs) are explicitly framed by the call's 5 Core Components and target the call's Expected Outcomes and the destinations Expected Impacts. These SOs are to: 1. Co-develop a Hub Strategy and a Joint Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda 2. Execute a diverse set of complementary interventions, engaging all players of the quadruple helix to support R&I and accelerate commercialization 3. Implement joint R&I activities to co-develop 4 pre-designs of diverse solar energy solutions 4. Maximize the project’s impacts through Dissemination, Exploitation, and Communication activities carefully tuned to actively engage all players of the quadruple helix To achieve these objectives, a diverse and complementary set of measures are proposed that include 1. Creation of relevant R& I strategies & policies 2. Networking between SolarHub & stakeholders 3. Multi-level engagement & training 4. Combination of R&I infrastructures for synergies 5. Creation of targeted joint programmes and linkages between the 2 countries based on sound technological solutions 6. Communicating the above to all major stakeholders in the targeted regions 7. Exploiting the positive results from all the above to setup a sustainable collaborative initiative after the end of the project. SolarHub's consortium contains 21 partners (7 Academic, 9 Business, 3 Public Authorities, and 2 Societal Actors) that are well-balanced between Academia and Business, and fully completes the quadruple helix. SolarHub is a 4 year project with 5 carefully designed Work Packages that efficiently exploit the consortium's diverse knowledge and expertise to develop Green solutions to today's Societal Challenges.