In order to mitigate climate change effects, urgent action is required in all sectors of the economy to significantly reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emission. Energy System Models (ESM) are tools that help energy analysts, planners and policy makers to rationally describe energy systems and systematically evaluate the impacts of long-term scenarios. On the supply side, ESMs have provided useful results, but however, on the demand side, they lack the degree of accuracy required for proper characterization of, among others, the use of energy in households. One of the intrinsic difficulties is that energy demand in the residential sector is influenced by a myriad of factors (like the high diversity of dwellings, socio-economic conditions of the social/family units, and behavioral-related consumption patterns) that cannot easily be accounted for in traditional ESMs. To overcome this challenge, the novel Causal Modeling will be used to quantitatively analyse human decision making in energy consumption and their reactions to interventions (e.g. policy changes). This will be combined with an innovative FFORMA approach which allows multiple different load profiles to be categorised by a set of vectors describing it. WHY will therefore create innovative methodologies for short and long term load forecasting. The WHY modeling will allow to directly assess the impact of a multitude of policies on the energy system as well as performing both ex-ante and ex-post assessment over policy measures. WHY will therefore contribute to a holistic understanding of household energy consumption and improved demand modelling. The WHY toolkit will be used to assess several scenarios simulating different policy measures. Integration with widely-used ESMs (PRIMES, TIMES) will be demonstrated and the results analyzed. All results will be open-sourced to maximize uptake, and be widely disseminated to diverse target audiences (i.e. DSOs, energy companies, policy makers, researchers).

JustWind4All aims to support the acceleration of on- and offshore wind energy through just and effective governance, i.e., the creation of synergies among people and organisations to coordinate and participate in actions around wind energy strategies and deployment. To this end, JustWind4All develops knowledge, practical guidelines, instruments, strategies, and trainings for just and effective decision-making in on- and offshore wind energy governance. This move towards more effective and just decision-making processes and structures is crucial in the context of ambitious EU renewable energy targets, which require installing more and larger on- and offshore wind farms, speeding up the planning and deployment processes whilst ensuring no one is left behind. JustWind4All makes use of a rigorous trans- and interdisciplinary multi-method research design. It combines holistic impact assessment based on a social-ecological approach with techno-economic modelling to assess a variety of social, environmental, technical, and economic impacts and/or benefits to improve decision-making. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies (e.g., case studies, multicriteria mapping) help to investigate ways to foster wind energy citizenship with a particular focus on participation, energy justice and social innovation. Through transdisciplinary knowledge co-production in Wind Labs, JustWind4All makes the most out of novel resources i.e., practices (repowering), technologies (airborne, floating) and regions (e.g., Bulgaria) and engages in knowledge co-production with wind energy governance actors for fit-for-purpose outcomes. A cutting-edge Wind Forum network enables knowledge exchange and dialogue between multiple stakeholders across policy, community, market and third sector – it ensures that JustWind4All’s knowledge, practical guidelines, instruments, strategies, and training activities have maximum impact.

NiD4OCEAN will advance the emerging field of nature-inclusive designs, NiDs, (and nature-based solutions, NBS, in general) for offshore renewables by providing effective, novel, context-dependent solutions to industry, managers, and policymakers. This will accelerate their implementation to support the achievement of the international and EU targets for carbon neutrality, biodiversity restoration and sustainable blue economy. Three distinct European ecoregions (North Sea, Baltic Sea, and Western Mediterranean) have been strategically selected due to their different technologies, habitats, ecosystems, and sectorial conflicts with the development of offshore renewables. An Innovation Challenge Series will be developed to promote novel NiDs and NBS for each ecoregion's wind and floating solar structures (addressing issues such as design, material choice, noise, and laying cables). Each ecoregion will use a transdisciplinary approach to develop context-dependent metrics and impact assessment frameworks to evaluate the benefits and risks of selected NiDs for offshore wind. Moreover, data and monitoring requirements for evaluating the performance of NiDs will be identified to be later incorporated into recommendations towards standards. An evidence-based decision-support tool will be co-created with industry and managers to provide clarity on the selection process of NiDs in offshore wind farms. Finally, a co-created policy toolkit for the requirements of offshore wind development to comply with biodiversity protection and restoration targets will be delivered. The NiD4OCEAN consortium (involving scientists, industry, SMEs, NGOs, and the standardization community) together with the establishment of the NiD4OCEAN network, will be key to an ambitious communication and dissemination strategy designed to reach all relevant stakeholders. NiD4OCEAN strives to raise awareness across stakeholders on the need to prioritize win-win solutions for biodiversity and decarbonization.

The transition to a low-carbon energy system will involve a major redesign of the energy system, primarily around renewable sources. Existing energy system planning models are insufficient for guiding this transition, primarily because they do not capture enough of the technological, geographic, and societal details that are important when designing an energy system around new renewable sources of energy. Expanding such models to capture these details would make them even less comprehensible and transparent than they are now. Instead, we propose a new modelling framework, the Sustainable Energy Transitions Laboratory (SENTINEL). Extensive collaboration with stakeholders will inform the development and refinement of the SENTINEL framework, both through an initial evaluation of user needs, and then through a set of participatory case studies. The SENTINEL framework will be completely modular in structure. Many separate models will each go into a great deal of detail about specific aspects of the transition to a low-carbon energy system. The models will be able to be easily linked together to answer a wide range of different questions. Since any given user is likely to need to use only a subset of the models, the task of understanding how those models operate will be manageable. All of the models and data will be accessible via an online platform. The platform will contain a user interface, as well as making source code and data open source, supplemented by supporting documentation and guidance. This will enable other models to be added to the SENTINEL framework and online platform over time. We will disseminate the results and promote the platform to the appropriate target audiences: policy-analysts; model developers; and research scientists. We will organize an annual conference, to build a community of model users and developers to carry this work forward. We plan to continue the platform and conferences long after the project is completed.