The ProRegio project aims at developing a manufacturing intelligence based product-service that will rigorously change the current way how customer requirements are addressed by manufacturing companies. The development of this new business approach is based on three major issues, namely (i) design of customer oriented product-services for frugal innovation in a bottom-up development process, (ii) optimization of production systems and networks based on interaction of stakeholders, and (iii) planning and control of production networks and regional production systems to enable ad-hoc re-design. The three goals are enabled by innovative cloud-based product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions integrating production (shop-floor and supplier) as well as customer feedbacks using open IT-platforms and advanced multi-objective optimization methods in comprehensive decision support tools. The application of the proposed methodology in any kind of globally engaging manufacturing company exploits potentials to shorten time-to-market of customized products as well as throughput times in globally distributed production tasks and reduce carbon footprint of global production networks. The integration of the proposed innovative product-service into production networks will increase the attractiveness of European companies by offering new added value services that make their products more attractive (e.g. more individualized products and shorter time to market) to different customers segments especially for emerging regions by offering new frugal products earning a share of sales and by increasing customer satisfaction in terms of providing more power to the customer. In general, ProRegio enables EU companies to export into emerging countries all around the world; in doing so the project will help to stabilize EU’s export growth above 5% until 2020.

Li-ion batteries are fundamental components for the energy transition of the European eco-system. Currently Europe lags behind Asia in terms of Li-ion battery cell manufacturing and more than 90% of the world's production takes place in China, Korea and Japan. To overcome this situation, there is an ambitious ramp-up plan of 25 new gigafactories in Europe with an expected value of €35 billion by 2030. However, in the ramp-up phase of these Gigafactories, a massive production of defects is expected, between 15% - 30%. The new European Gigafactories will also bring demand for €150 bn of battery manufacturing equipment. To support this demand, the EU production equipment industry needs to fill the current knowledge gap and gain competitiveness towards Asian providers, grounding on its world-wide leadership in high-tech, green technologies, enhanced by industry 4.0 digital solutions, exploiting the European Zero-Defect Manufacturing paradigm. The objective of BATTwin is to support this scenario by developing a novel Multi-level Digital Twin platform towards Zero-Defect Manufacturing in battery production, that will reduce defect rates in battery production lines. The solution integrates four pillars, namely (i) a multi-sensor data acquisition and management layer, supported by data semantics through a Digital Battery Passport data model, (ii) process-level digital twins, modeling the critical stages of electrode manufacturing, cell assembly and conditioning through multi-physics, data-driven and hybrid approaches, (iii) system-level digital twins, based on simulation and analytical modeling, (iv) user-centric, goal-driven digital twin workflows, increasing the explainability of digital twins and driving the user in system design and control. The approach will be tested in two industrial pilots producing different battery chemistries and geometries, validating the flexibility and scaleability of the approach towards Zero Defect European Gigafactories.

Sodium-ion batteries offer enhanced cost-effectiveness and sustainability, challenging the dominance of lithium batteries in the stationary energy storage sector. The SPRINT project will gather 8 industries, 2 SMEs and 8 academic partners (incl. one associated partner) for 46 months to optimise and demonstrate two sustainable, techno-economically viable and safe quasi-solid-state sodium-ion batteries better meeting the requirements of stationary energy storage applications. This will be achieved relying on abundant, non-toxic, safe, and competitive materials available in EU supply chains brought to scale within SPRINT, i.e. optimised NFP cathode materials relying on novel synthesis; hard-carbon materials derived from a validated forest residues supply chain in Northern Europe; and quasi-solid-state polymer and polymer composite electrolytes with a solvent-free synthesis, and which are major advancements vs. flammable liquid electrolytes. Strategic interface optimisations will be leveraged to meet end-users’ requirements in terms of cells’ cycle life. SPRINT also aims to bring to scale dry electrode processing (incl. using PFAS-free binders) to enhance the sustainability of battery manufacturing. Batteries encompassing such solutions will be demonstrated on two demonstration sites in Austria (portfolio hybridisation, balancing services) and Lithuania (residential PV, increased grid capacity for EV chargers), and SPRINT will also engage with international use-case providers (e.g. Morrocco, Tunisia, Kenya, Sierra Leone, etc.). All in all, it is foreseen that SPRINT will reduce costs (0.04€/kWh/cycle), enhance energy density (>200Wh/kg & >420Wh/L) and power metrics (>500 W/kg), improve cells' cycle life (projected >5,000 cycles), while ensuring safe operation (leak-free technology) for a high market penetration. The Consortium will accompany all solutions to commercialisation, supported by the created Exploitation Board to facilitate their uptake.