Rail freight transportation is a system service where a multitude of players, participants and systems providers bear a high degree of responsibility for its attractiveness and performance. It shows high efficiency as transportation means, in terms of land use and energy consumption and low greenhouse gas emissions. However rail’s market share of freight transportation and its economic efficiency continues to be limited. Aimed at overcoming such uncertainty, this project addresses one of the most important key resources for further developing rail freight transportation: the optimization of the performance of the rail freight wagon. The continuous pressure on environmental issues and energy efficient transport is forcing the rail transportation sector to enhance the rail logistics services and to incorporate innovative solutions to improve load capacity to keep the “best-in-class” position and, therefore, acquiring a much privileged position beyond alternative terrestrial transport source, as truck transportation. Thus, aimed at optimizing rail freight transportation, the main objective of this project is to holistically address the aspects that may improve freight wagon performance: enhanced logistics, improved multimodal operative, higher load capacity, optimized filling/emptying time and flexibility to transport multi-products. This project aims to achieve such optimization by combining industrial expertise on the freight wagon design and construction, advanced materials for lightweight construction and logistics with the research capabilities to incorporate innovation solutions and optimize material performance.

HYBRIS' basis is the optimisation of advanced hybrid systems as high-performant, cost-effective and environmentally-friendly solutions in microgrid applications. HYBRIS is an integrated industrially driven action, that will answer to this challenge in 4 key points: - Viability and cost effectiveness: of the use and integration of novel HEES system coupled with innovative microgrid system local RREE generation and loads, (in particular residential, tertiary buildings and EV charges stations). Achieved by the integration and validation of a suite of technologies, tools and methods enabling their easy application and massive deployment. - Technical: pursuing the technical optimization of the HEES system in 3 use case applications covering respectively 1) Energy services in island grids 2) Energy services in private grids 3) EV charging stations in e-mobility, - Optimization and integraton. - Validation: by using the 3 demonstration sites as open case studies representing the 3 differrent use case applications and situations found throughout Europe, to leverage knowledge, key exploitable results, adapted business models and market-oriented dissemination for maximizing impact and wide adoption of these novel heating and cooling technologies and approach. HYBRIS features a fully systematic, collaborative and integrated approach to the development and deployment of innovative battery based hybrid storage sytemm, coupling diverse and complementary breakthrough TRL 5-6 technology assets brought by leading industrials, universities and RTOs, plus ICT tools for viable and cost-effective optimization and further market introduction. All will reach TRL6 by the demonstration and validation of its concepts in 3 use cases applications in 3 pilot sites in 3 four countries

SPHERE’s ultimate goal is the Improvement and optimisation of buildings’ energy design, construction, performance, and management, reducing construction costs and their environmental impact while increasing overall energy performance. SPHERE project will integrate two planes of research, innovation and improvement: • integration of the processes under the Digital Twin Concept involving not only the Design and Construction of the Building but including also the Manufacturing and the Operational phases • integrated platform that will be achieved through an underlying ICT Systems of Systems infrastructure based on Platform as a Service (PaaS) service to allow large scale data, information and knowledge integration and synchronization thus allowing a better handling and processing e.g BIMBots, machine learning , simulation etc. This Digital Twin concept is in fact a distributed but coordinated Database, including geometrical objects information that forms a unique synchronized virtual model of the reality. As has been proven in other fields, twinning this virtual information model with the reality helps significantly in decision-making during each phase of the whole building’s lifespan (manufacturing, design, construction, maintenance, operation, retrofitting and even demolition). The SPHERE cloud-ICT platform will allow to interact all different stakeholders during any phase of the asset with a building Digital Twin model of information of the building and a scalable set of different software tools, such as energy demand/performance simulation tools, Decision Support and Coaching Systems, BEMs or IoT enabled Predictive Maintenance Algorithms. The Digital Twin Concept, platform and Tools will be tested in four real pilots and finally validateted both technically and especially final social acceptance to accelerate market uptake.

HYPERGRYD aims at developing a set of replicable and scalable cost effective technical solutions to allow the integration of RES with different dispatchability and intrinsic variability inside Thermal Grids as well as their link with the Electrical Grids, including the development of innovative key components, in parallel with innovative and integrated ICT services formed by a scalable suite of tools for the proper handling of the increased complexity of the systems from building to Local Energy Community (LEC) levels and beyond, accelerate the sustainable transformation, planning and modernization of District Heating and Cooling (DHC) toward 4th and 5th generation. HYPERGRYD also aims at developing real time management of both electrical and thermal energy flows in the coupled energy network complex, including the synergies between them. Therefore, HYPERGRYD aims at three over-arching General Objectives: - To prove Smart Energy Networks as the future of Efficient Energy Management in DHC in synergy with the Electrical Grids in LEC/Smart Cities of the future, - To define the roadmap to design and planning of future DHC as well as the modernization of the existing ones in different climates and RES penetration levels toward 4th-5th generation, -To demonstrate HYPERGRYD RES-based Enabling Technologies, Smart Energy Grid Solutions empowered by new ICT tools and services as the key for this evolution. During the project, the HYPERGRYD?s solutions will be implemented across 4 Live-In-the-Labs cases in 3 representative climates provided by the consortium, with special consideration to their cost effectiveness and potential replicability to finally achieve these 3 main objectives. All these tasks will follow the proposed work program activities to ensure systematic and scientific performance measures, feedback and powerful exploitation.

DigiChecks proposes to build a digital framework that implements the following steps to overcome the challenges mentioned and pave the way to a more streamlined approach to manage and process permits: Step 1: Standardized Permit Ontology. The first step is to create a shared language for permitting. This language, formalized in a permit ontology, enables the framework to map data from various sources into a common structure and make it processable by a computer in a repeatable manner. Step 2: Digitizing Permit Processes. To deal with the many different actors and their respective processes for permitting, DigiChecks proposes to develop a tool, based on OMG standards, where these actors can model their processes into DigiChecks. These process models can be updated and or removed when the processess change. Step 3: Building Permit Rules. DigiChecks' proposed solution contains the ability for permitting authorities to build their own rules. These rules are used as a base for an automated compliancy checker. Step 4: Integration of the previous steps into a Permit Service (API). To transform the solution into a service, DigiChecks combines steps one (Permit Ontology), two (Permit Process) and three (Permit Rules) into a service offered through an (Open) API. The DigiChecks Permit Service API implements the concepts from the ontology to defined rules and these rules are mapped to a process, thus digitizing the permit workflow. By having an accessible Permit Service, third party developers will be enabled to create new, innovative and reliable permitting applications. The ultimate objective of the solution is to provide flexibility, ease-of-use and efficiency to the permit validation and approval system in the construction project environments. A solution framework is thus required that allows - regardless of the country, region or municipality -, an easy interoperability with the tools commonly used in construction.