Storages are unavoidable components of the future smart grid with large share of variable renewable generation. However, the unit-cost of energy, that is retrieved from storages, is several times higher than the cost of energy consumed upon its output from RES. Therefore, there is a strong requirement on the optimisation of storage capacities deployed in the grid. This is especially true for the small energy sites such as DER and prosumers’ microgrids which are the segments, targeted by the SHAR-Q bottom-up concept. The principal objective of the SHAR-Q is to optimize the storage capacities deployed in the grid with the help of a peer-to-peer interoperability network that connects neighbourhooding RES+Storage ecosystems into a collaboration framework. Thus, the optimization of storage capacities can be achieved through their sharing among the participating actors. To get connected to the SHAR-Q network, an open interoperability gateway with semantic interface descriptors will be provided that will be based on the most adopted standards in the field. Moreover, the users will be provided with an ability to manage their contribution to the collaborative models on their own in a way that resembles the well-known social web portals (e.g. users can control with whom they wish to share specific storage capacities). The viability of the collaborative business models will be proven through added-value services, deployed over the SHAR-Q interoperability network, that will be demonstrated in 3 different pilots, targeting 3 different segments of end-users such as neighborhoods of distributed RES, coalitions of prosumers and locations with e-vehicle charging stations. The SHAR-Q research and innovation activities will be driven by the opinion of stakeholders involved in the SHAR-Q stakeholder advisory board. Their feedback will be carefully monitored throughout the project duration. Such approach is supposed to maximise the adoption potential of the SHAR-Q concept.

The lack of interoperability is considered as the most important barrier to achieve the global integration of IoT ecosystems across borders of different disciplines, vendors and standards. Indeed, the current IoT landscape consists of a large set of isolated islands that do not constitute a real internet, preventing the exploitation of the huge potential expected by ICT visionaries. To overcome this situation, VICINITY presents a virtual neighborhood concept, which is a decentralized, bottom-up and cross-domain approach that resembles a social network, where users can configure their set ups, integrate standards according to the services they want to use and fully control their desired level of privacy. VICINITY then automatically creates technical interoperability up to the semantic level. This allows users without technical background to get connected to the vicinity ecosystem in an easy and open way, fulfilling the consumers needs. Furthermore, the combination of services from different domains together with privacy-respectful user-defined share of information, enables synergies among services from those domains and opens the door to a new market of domain-crossing services. VICINITY's approach will be demonstrated by a large-scale demonstration connecting 8 facilities in 7 different countries. The demonstration covers various domains including energy, building automation, health and transport. VICINITY's potential to create new, domain-crossing services will be demonstrated by value added services such as micro-trading of DSM capabilities, AI-driven optimization of smart urban districts and business intelligence over IoT. Open calls are envisioned in the project to integrate further, preferably public, IoT infrastructures and to deploy additional added value services. This will not only extend the scale of VICINITY demonstration, but also efficiently raise the awareness of industrial communities of VICINITY and its capabilities.

The transformation of the European Process Industry needs to embrace circular economy and restorative feedback loops, as a key pillar of the design of entire value chains. Construction, as a waste-intensive sector, is expected to greatly benefit from the potential impacts of circular economy models, to optimize the use of resources, reduce exploitation of raw materials and costs associated with its supply. In the construction and manufacturing process industries, a key challenge to allow the actual uptake of circular economy models and of upcycled /repurposed and/or recycled materials, lies on the need to guarantee that reclaimed materials can offer the same level of quality, performance, and safety of new secondary products. The aim of CIRCULess, is to contribute to foster circularity in the construction and manufacturing process industries, by minimizing Construction and Demolition waste (C&DW) as well as Manufacturing waste (CDM), with focus on mineral (i.e. concrete) and timber-based material streams, which is aligned with the objectives of the Processes4Planet Partnership, by developing new processes for circularity of secondary materials from wastes/residues for all industrial processes, without compromising quality and performance as well as sustainable-by-design circular products. CIRCULess main objective will be addressed by experimenting new circular products and novel processing techniques to improve the quality and performances of secondary materials up to industry expected standards, improve value chain environmental friendliness, maximize recycled components. These actions will benefit from the support and will provide inputs to a tailored digital platform to orient decision making and operational activities. Finally, to foster uptake by the construction sector, recommendations for standards updates and relevant training material for both upskilling current construction workforce and create new specialized profiles in the sector will be created.

Τhe strategic objective of SPADE is to develop an Intelligent Ecosystem to address the multiple purposes concept in the light of deploying UAVs to promote sustainable digital services for the benefit of a large scope of various end users in the sectors of agriculture, forestry, and livestock. This includes individual UAV usability, UAV type applicability (e.g., swarm, collaborative, autonomous, tethered), UAV governance models availability and trustworthiness. Multi-purposes will be further determined in the sensing dataspace reusability based on trained AI/Machine Learning (ML) models. These will enable sustainability and resilience of the overall life cycle of developing, setting up, offering, providing, testing, validating, refining as well as enhancing digital transformations and ‘innovation building’ services in Forestry, Cropping and Livestock Farming. Pilot prototypes will contribute towards greater challenges such as deforestation, precision cropping and animal welfare. First, SPADE will create a digital platform that is able to realise the potential benefits to be reaped from the use of drones. This platform is making drone operations better accessible and controllable, as well as providing a service channel for value added services enabled by drones. Second, SPADE is demonstrating three innovative use cases of drones making use of the digital platform. While demonstrating the use cases, the benefits coming from the use of drones are analysed and quantified, on a detailed stakeholder level basis. This will demonstrate the new business opportunities. The demonstrations/pilots will also serve as an analysis platform to investigate the regulatory framework at international and national level. Open calls will provide 12 further use cases.

Lower population and business density make it more challenging to develop private businesses and public services in rural areas, negatively impacting socio-economic indicators. Rural areas are key to solve climate change, food, biomass and energy challenges. Favourable climate for entrepreneurship is needed for better provision of jobs, basic services, including health and care, connectivity, smart transport, energy solutions and attractiveness as whole, overcoming digital divide between rural and urban areas. AURORAL focus on delivering a digital environment of interoperable services through platforms able to trigger dynamic rural ecosystems of innovation chains, applications and services. Thus, AURORAL contributes to increasing economic growth in rural areas and to tackle significant societal challenges. AURORAL digital environment is demonstrated by cost-efficient and flexible cross-domain applications through large-scale pilots in five European regions. AURORAL digital environment builds on an open, API-based, interoperable and federated IoT architecture and includes a reference implementation supporting flexible integration of heterogeneous services, bridging the interoperability gap of the smart object platforms and creating markets for services in rural areas. AURORAL digital environment addresses the integration of data and information across different platforms, establishment of an open market place, large-scale demonstration, multiplication of novel applications, the leverage of infrastructure and inclusion of public services. AURORAL pilots follow an evolutionary agile, well-delineated, and lean approach demonstrated in large-scale applications capable of meeting social and economic objectives critical to boost new rural services and business. AURORAL digital environment supports a vibrant ecosystem of developers, service providers and user communities and addresses barriers currently opposing the socio-economic development of rural areas.