Horizon Europe: Five innovative RES projects

The EU wants to accelerate the production of Renewable Energy Sources (RES), as well as their introduction to the European energy grid by 55% by 2030.

The original Renewable Energy Directive was revised in 2018 for the first time and then once more in 2021. A few months ago, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the RePowerEU plan came to life out of necessity.

The REPowerEU plan is based on three pillars: saving energy, producing clean energy and diversifying the EU's energy supplies.

According to a statement by Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission: "With REPowerEU, we show that we can replace Russian fossil fuels by working on three levels: The first level is on the demand side. That is saving energy.  It sounds simple, it is simple, but very effective. Then on the supply side, it is, of course, diversifying away from Russia for fossil fuels and towards other reliable trustworthy suppliers. And the most important part: accelerating the clean energy transition, so massive investment in renewable energy".

To achieve that, EU member states will have to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% (compared to 1990) by 2030.

The following EU-funded projects are invested in solving the renewable energy sources (RES) puzzle, in order to help Europe become a climate-neutral continent by 2050.

caREL

This computer-aided Renewable Energy Language (caREL) aims to help identify the best, most profitable locations for wind power and solar plants. And thus, it contributes to the EU Commission's Green Deal goals.

The project utilizes the INSPIRE Directive and focuses on technology transfer based on existing geodata as well as already developed methods and algorithms. 

Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Slovenia and Spain were selected as pilot countries, but the goal is for the project to eventually expand.

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EU-SCORES

This green deal project, led by the Dutch Marine Energy Centre, aims to demonstrate the combination of offshore wind with wave- and offshore solar PV energy. 

EU-SCORES will include a 3 MW grid-connected offshore solar PV system which is going to be installed 2 km off the Belgian coast at the Blue Accelerator test site. 

In addition, the project will include a 1.2MW wave energy array by CorPower Ocean in Portugal, which will be grid connected.

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eCREW

The project aims to coordinate and support the roll-out of an innovative scheme of household cooperation in energy management.

The key purpose of eCREW is to support the transition of passive consumers to active participants in the local energy system.

The project is creating webs of households that jointly manage energy to improve efficiency and renewables uptake.

EoCoE-II

The Energy-oriented Centre of Excellence (EoCoE) in computing applications develops and applies computational methods in order to assist accelerate the transition to the production, storage and management of clean, decarbonised energy.

After the successful proof-of-concept phase of EoCoE-I, its successor, the EoCoE-II project is focusing on five scientific challenges in the low-carbon sectors of energy meteorology, materials, water, wind and fusion.

The project aims to highlight new modelling capabilities in selected energy sectors and demonstrate the potential benefits of HPC simulations to the energy industry.

BLAZE

The Biomass Low cost Advanced Zero Emission project or BLAZE aims to develop an innovative, efficient and fuel-flexible technology for combined heat and power from biomass.

The project's goal is to demonstrate how the use of an integrated biomass gasifier and fuel cell CHP plant, can be a cost-effective way to produce renewable electricity and heat from residual biomass.