Intelligent Energy Europe expects district heating to double its share of the European heat market by 2020 while district cooling will grow to 25%. While this expansion will translate into 2.6% reduction in the European primary energy need and 9.3% of all carbon emissions, it will not be achieved through modernization and expansion alone but requires fundamental technological innovation to make the next generation of district heating and cooling (DHC) systems highly efficient and cost effective to design, operate and maintain. E2District aims to develop, deploy, and demonstrate a novel cloud enabled management framework for DHC systems, which will deliver compound energy cost savings of 30% through development of a District Simulation Platform to optimise DHC asset configuration targeting >5% energy reduction, development of intelligent adaptive DHC control and optimisation methods targeting an energy cost reduction between 10 and 20%, including flexible production, storage and demand assets, and system-level fault detection and diagnostics, development of behaviour analytics and prosumer engagement tools to keep the end user in the loop, targeting overall energy savings of 5%. Development of a flexible District Operation System for the efficient, replicable and scalable deployment of DHC monitoring, intelligent control, FDD and prosumer engagement, development of novel business models for DHC Operators, Integrators and Designers, validation, evaluation, and demonstration of the E2District platform, and development of strong and rigorous dissemination, exploitation and path-to-market strategies to ensure project outcomes are communicated to all DHC stakeholders. E2District addresses specifically the call’s objective related to the development of optimisation, control, metering, planning and modelling tools including consumer engagement and behaviour analytics and supports the integration of multiple generation sources, including renewable energy and storage.

The overall objective of WEDISTRICT is to demonstrate DHC as an integrated solution that exploits the combination of RES, thermal storage and waste heat recycling technologies to satisfy 100% of the heating and cooling energy demand in new DHC and up to 60-100% in retrofitted DHC. For this purpose, the focus of WEDISTRICT is large-scale replication of best practice: better valorisation of local resources, like renewable and waste heat by making District Heating and Cooling networks more efficient in relation to the use of new resources. In parallel, systems will evolve to provide even more flexible solutions by the integration of innovative molten-salts based thermal storage, the interaction with other energy networks (electricity and gas) and the involvement of end-users (operators and consumers) through ICT-based control and decision making. Finally, to enable significant expansion, cost-effectiveness will be enhanced by transitioning from handicraft to more industrialised solutions that integrate LEAN methodologies to optimise processes and lower costs.

Urban GreenUP aims at obtaining a tailored methodology (1) to support the co-development of Renaturing Urban Plans focused on climate change mitigation and adaptation and efficient water management, and (2) to assist in the implementation of NBS in an effective way. NBS classification and parametrization will be addressed and some resources to support decision making will be established as part of the project activities. A large scale and fully replicable demonstration action of NBS accompanied by innovative business models will provide evidences about the benefits of NBS contributing to the creation of new market opportunities for European companies, and fostering citizen insight and awareness about environmental problems. Three European cities will assume the demos as front-runners (Valladolid, Liverpool and Izmir), other set of two European cities will act as followers to strengthen the replication potential of the results (Ludwigsburg and Mantova) and finally three non-European cities (Medellín, Chengdu and Quy Nhon) will allow to identify the market opportunities for European companies out of Europe and fostering the European leadership in NBS implementation at global level. URBAN GreenUp also aims to: fostering the creation of a global market and EU international cooperation; deploy a wide Exploitation and Market deployment procedure for NBS solutions & deploy an Impact-based Communication and Dissemination strategy.

The construction sector faces unprecedented challenges in meeting EU climate and circularity goals, with buildings accounting for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions. Despite available digital technologies, the industry struggles to implement sustainable practices, particularly among SMEs who represent over 90% of the sector. Current digital solutions remain fragmented and often inaccessible, creating barriers to widespread adoption of sustainable practices. INTEGRATES addresses these challenges by developing an innovative framework that connects Building Information Modelling, Digital Twins, and data-driven services through an intelligent knowledge architecture. The project will achieve this through three key innovations: - A unified ontology-based knowledge framework, supported by neuro-symbolic AI, bridging existing building data standards - User-centric digital tools for SME adoption, featuring AI-assisted workflows that reduce design and planning time, and facilitate operation and resource recovery - An integrated platform connecting building lifecycle phases through Digital Product Passports and Digital Building Logbook These innovations will be validated through four complementary demonstration cases spanning different building types: a public building end-of-life transformation in Italy, a residential renovation in Bulgaria, a smart district optimization in Belgium, and a new construction project in Spain. The project targets reduction in renovation planning time, increase in material reuse rates, improvement in energy efficiency, and active implementation by local SMEs. Through participation in standardization committees and regional networks, INTEGRATES will drive lasting change in the European construction sector. The consortium brings together 16 partners from 9 countries, combining research institutions, technology providers, and regional innovation hubs to ensure both technical excellence and practical implementation focused on SME need