The overarching aim of RE-WITCH is to deliver cost-competitive, game-changing solutions in the field of sustainable industrial cooling and heating. To do so, RE-WITCH will demonstrate advanced thermally-driven industrial cooling technologies based on ADsorption and ABsorption processes driven by an optimized mix of low-grade waste and renewable sources (innovative high vacuum flat plate solar collectors). Such solutions will be demonstrated in 4 demo sites encompassing food and beverage sectors as well as industrial sectors where heat-to-cold solutions are not yet widely explored (bio-refinery, pulp & paper). The activity will be completed by studying the replicability of proposed technologies in replication sites even integrated with DHN. The project will be delivered by an industrial-driven consortium of 26 partners from 10 countries and it is composed by some of the most innovative SMEs, LEs and R&D centers in the field of industrial renewable H&C leveraging experience from industrial and EU-funded projects (HYCOOL, SO-WHAT, Indus3Es). The multi-disciplinary composition of the consortium ensures that all the challenges (technical and non-) will be addressed to ultimately bring RE-WITCH solutions to the market by 2029. Innovative open access modelling platforms and engineering solutions will be also developed to facilitate the design, upscale, replication and integration in industrial processes of the proposed technologies. Thanks to a stakeholders’ driven dissemination and communication campaign, RE-WITCH will ultimately demonstrate transformative technological solutions that unlock the combined potential of low-grade waste and renewable heat use in industries, hence also targeting integration of heat-to-cold technologies into relevant EU Policies.

REGEN-BY-2 will research, design, construct and experiment a first-of-its-kind lab-scale prototype of a recent near-worldwide patented thermodynamic cycle and related plant for the conversion of thermal sources in energy vectors, i.e. electric, heating and-or cooling powers. The start-up TIFEO, which was founded in 2018 by the team leading this proposal and is the exclusive licensee of the patent driving REGEN-BY-2, is a potential European Unicorn. REGEN-BY-2 can convert (from small to large-scale) any typology of renewable thermal source from low to high-temperature (e.g. solar, aerothermal, geothermal, hydrothermal) including additional thermal sources (e.g. waste heat). REGEN-BY-2 is enabled by machines capable to work with two-phase fluids, i.e. constituted by both liquid and vapor phases. The patented thermodynamic cycle is highly efficient as it is constituted by a proper combination of Carnot cycles operating with two-phase fluid circulating in novel two-phase expanders and two-phase compressors. To be successful, these two-phase machines will have to be designed, prototyped and integrated in the REGEN-BY-2 lab-scale prototype. Moreover, the patented technology has large flexibility due to the control of many process parameters, allowing chasing and satisfying the end-users energy demands in a predictable and dispatchable way. By the exploitation of renewable thermal sources from small to large-scale, by converting them more efficiently and with more flexibility into electric, heating and-or cooling energy vectors, REGEN-BY-2 will induce greater demand for and increasing use of renewable thermal sources. REGEN-BY-2 is a breakthrough in our energy infrastructure as it can be used in wide energy sectors (e.g. District Heating&Cooling systems and Distributed Renewable Flexible Energy systems). The research is low-TRL and high risk. For this, a full value international chain is assembled (Universities, RTOs, SMEs, Large Enterprises, a Standards Organization).

TRAIN4SUSTAIN (T4S) will stimulate demand for skilled construction sector professionals (architects, contractors-SMEs and workers) through raising acceptance of regional and national qualifications and skills on the EU construction market. To this end, comparability of national qualifications and sustainable energy skills is key for increased transparency and penetration power in the market. T4S will tackle the issue of mutual recognition so that training accredited in one country is recognised easier in another country. Taking advantage of already available transnational energy skill qualification frameworks for building professions, like the BUILD UP Skills initiative, Prof/Trac scheme or the ones produced by the BIM community, and the recently developed EU framework for energy and resource efficient buildings (e.g. Level(s) ), T4S will focus on acting at market level. T4S project will foster a common understanding of sustainable energy skills across Europe by promoting a competence quality standard, a European Skills Registry and a Skills Passport for facilitating transnational recognition of learning outcomes and skill levels of existing qualifications and vocational trainings.

The INNOVEAS project is an initiative promoted by 10 partners, from 6 EU countries, to build and deliver a capacity building programme, aiming at addressing the major non-technical barriers that most often hamper the adoption the energy auditing practice, in particular among those actors, such as SMEs where such audits are not required by law. The ultimate goal is to consolidate a structured, permanent and expandable offer to help develop continuous self-sustainable services to raise awareness and build capacity in the field of energy auditing and related energy saving measures in SMEs. The project therefore aims at designing and deploying staff trainings and capacity building programmes to enhance corporate policy towards energy efficiency, energy culture (motivations, behaviour change, mitigation of perceived risks and barriers) and sustainable supply-chain initiatives. It therefore intends to: i) Advanced analysis of behavioural barriers to energy audits, to identify and analyse the enabling conditions and non-technical barriers hindering the adoption of energy auditing practice; ii) Delivery of self-sustainable capacity building programmes, in order to systematise awareness raising procedures to overcome the psychological and organisational barriers to energy audits in SMEs, deliver a training offer to SMEs and formulate a capacity building programme targeting stakeholders such as intermediaries, policy makers and financing institutes; iii) Create an institutional structure to sustain the project’s objectives and results and lay the basis for the creation and consolidation of a pan-European network of enablers likely to support in the coming years the growth and expansion of the training offer to on energy efficiency for European business.