The aim of Superhomes2030 is to dramatically scale the Superhomes offer (a concept developed by TEA) in Ireland from a model which completes 100/€6m worth of retrofits per annum in 2019 to 500/€36m per annum by 2023, and 3,000/€150m per annum by 2030 (10% of National Target). The expanded and improved Superhomes service would result in 48 GWh savings (between 2020 and 2023) compared to a Business as Usual scenario of 27GWh. This ambition will be achieved through the development of • 4 Regional Superhome One Stop Shops which will engage 80 High Performance Contractors to deliver quality retrofits nationally • capacity building and training for homeowners/surveyors/contractors/technical staff (>200 people trained) • attractive finance solutions independent of public finances, financing >€67m per annum by 2030 • optimisation of technical analysis and design systems and solutions. • creation of open source energy performance data platforms which demonstrate the value of undertaking nZEB retrofits to the market A Growth Strategy will be developed which will inform Innovative Business models based on the concept of regional “one stop shop”. Superhomes2030 will facilitate a Deep Retrofit Community of Practice (CoP) across Europe where leading experts, practitioners and agencies involved in Deep Retrofit will share experience, knowledge and competency thus driving the retrofit agenda. Technical solutions using best practice standards will be developed which will be future proofed to include new innovations and technical solutions. Opportunities to expand the Superhomes model outside of Ireland will also be explored, using linkages created through the European Heat Pump Association and FEDARENE. If successful Superhomes2030 will implement 10% of all retrofits in Ireland by 2030 and a total investment of €657m from 2020 to 2030, supporting 13,000 FTE jobs in the construction and retrofitting sector, and saving 167 kilotonnes of CO2.

The PREFER project (Professional Roles and Employability of Future EngineeRs) aims to reduce the skills mismatch in the field of engineering: new engineering graduates frequently display a lack of transversal skills required by the labour market. Enterprises observe a lack of self-awareness among new engineering graduates of who they are as an engineer and what their strengths are. Despite appropriate levels of technical skills, enterprises recruiting engineers often demand a more elaborated transversal skill set. The objectives of the PREFER project are threefold. First, we aim to construct a Professional Roles Framework wherein the different roles engineers can take on in the beginning of their career are described, independent of the engineering disciplines (e.g., electronics, chemistry, ..). Each role will be characterized with an associated set of transversal skills. Thereafter, a Test System will be developed in order to (1) increase engineering students’ awareness of the multitude of professional roles in engineering and (2) to make them reflect on their own engineering identity and their interests, strengths and weaknesses. Third, we will explore how to implement these innovative tools into the engineering curriculum by running a number of pilots in the participating universities. This will result in a modern learning environment that ensures that people can develop their own talent in full on the basis of informed study and career choices.In order to reach the PREFER objectives, a well-balanced consortium is constructed. Three leading engineering education institutions (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Delft University of Technology and Dublin Institute of Technology) and three multinationals with large experience in recruiting different profiles of engineers (Engie, Siemens and ESB), are involved. In order to develop reliable and valid test material, an experienced test development partner (BDO) is a member of the team. And finally, we will guarantee a

The UK government is determined to address the challenges of tackling climate change and maintaining energy security in a way that minimises costs and maximises benefits to the economy. Among all sources of CO2 emissions in the UK, the energy supply accounts for about 40%, followed by the transport for over 25%. To meet the target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, large proportion of electricity generated from low carbon sources integrated with mass adoption of electric vehicles (EV) offer a great potential. Likewise, the Chinese 12th National Economic and Social Development Five-Year Plan has set the target of 3.5% reduction per unit of GDP in both energy use and carbon dioxide emissions, and identified new energy and clean energy vehicles among the seven priority industries in the next five years from 2012. It is clear that both countries are fully committed to a planned 'decarbonisation' of their respective energy systems. However, both face the challenges of planning and building the suitable infrastructure, and of managing the resources to ensure future power systems operate more reliably, more flexibly, and more economically, by integrating and coordinating the actions of all actors. It has been widely recognized that electric vehicles could both benefit from and help to drive forward the development of smart grids where renewable resources are widely and substantially employed. However, a number of technical challenges are still open for further exploitation. The proposed collaborative interdisciplinary research will investigate and develop an intelligent grid interfaced vehicle eco-charging (iGIVE) system for more reliable, more flexible and efficient, and more environmental friendly smart gird solutions for seamless integration of distributed low-carbon intermittent power generation and large number of EVs. To achieve this, a multilayer hierarchical power and information flow framework for monitoring and optimal control of the EV charging while minimising the volume of information passed to the utility control centers will be investigated first. Within this framework, a variable rate bi-directional high performance EV battery charging unit based on a patented technology will be developed, and battery management and optimal EV charging and discharging dispatching strategies will be investigated. Other issues associated to the charging stations, such as electromagnetic interference and harmonics generation and their impact on environment and electricity grid will also be studied. Finally, simulation platform will be built to investigate the interactions of EV-related different participants and their impact on the grid operations. A test bed to verify the design will be developed and a joint UK-China joint laboratory on smart grid and EV integration will be established, bringing together key academic and industry partners in smart grid and EV from UK and China. Both system operators and EV industry in the UK, China and other parts of the world will benefit considerably from the development of intelligent EV eco-charging systems when a large number of EVs are adopted by the public and greater amounts of renewable power are utilized, as they provide an adaptive and intelligent framework and EV charging systems to economically, efficiently and environment-friendly accommodate charging requirements as well as providing ancillary service to the grid integrated with larger amounts of intermittent renewable energy sources and thereby enable the decarbonisation of the electricity supply industry and the transport sector.