The ELECTROLIFE project aims to be a booster to enable the use of green hydrogen technologies to support decarbonization of European global industry. Currently, electrolysis technologies suffer from limitations in terms of cost, efficiency, stability, scalability, and recyclability. This is mainly due to the lack of understanding and identification of electrolyzer degradation mechanisms and improvement of current cell performance. ELECTROLIFE aims to increase the efficiency performance of electrolyzers by reducing the use of critical materials and extending the useful life of these systems. These goals will be achieved through test campaigns to identify multiple degradation mechanisms on multiple scales, multiphysics simulations with superimposed degradation mechanisms, prototyping of cells and stack components, and construction of dedicated test benches. The type of testing will be harmonized through dedicated protocols, and test results will be processed and made available through dedicated online data centers. In addition, diagnostic and stack health models will be developed to reduce the degradation rate, enabling the implementation of predictive control systems. ELECTROLIFE will demonstrate the implementation of durable stacks using relevant experimental methods through the production of high-performance technologies with minimal CRM content, enabling scalability and recyclability. ELECTROLIFE is expected to reduce the average cost of ownership of the electrolyzers by 40% for AEL and PEMEL and by 70% for AEMEL and SOEL. These achievements will enable utilization of the innovations developed by ELECTROLIFE, reaching 15% of European production capacity (corresponding to about +3GW/a - IEA 2022).

Smart grid is a dynamically interactive real-time infrastructure concept that encompasses the many visions of diverse energy system stakeholders. The Smart Grid is integrating the electrical and information technologies in between any point of generation and any point of consumption. The main objective of the project is to fully analyze all aspects of smart grids targeting in the improvement of reliability, mitigation of security risks, increase load shaping and energy efficiency, optimal integration and generation-consumption matching as well as smart monitoring and control. To this end, the aim of the SMART GEMS project is to use Smart Grids’ optimization and reliable operation concept as the common basis for collaboration and staff exchange among the partners. The overall effort will be based in two existing smart grid infrastructures owned by TUC and AEA and is designed to exploit the complementary expertise of the participants as well as enhance and create more synergies. Moreover the infrastructure of all partners will be available for the project’s goals. In this framework, SMART-GEMS partners are selected to formulate a complementary group which encompasses all the major aspects of smart grids. During the SMART GEMS secondments, a mixture of research and training will be blended in a suitable proportion as to maximize the career perspectives of the researchers involved focusing on innovation skills related to smart grids and smart communities interdisciplinary aspects. The methodological approach is designed to enhance the researchers’ competitiveness and promote the ideas sharing from research to market and vice versa. The methodology is based on a cycle expansion in three dimensions where all participants are actively involved

PERFoRM - Production harmonizEd Reconfiguration of Flexible Robots and Machinery aims to the conceptual transformation of existing Production Systems towards plug&produce production systems in order to achieve a flexible manufacturing environments based on rapid and seamless reconfiguration of machinery and robots as response to operational or business events. These objectives require research activities to implement a solid Manufacturing middleware based on encapsulation of production resources and assets according existing paradigms (e.g. CPS, Service based architectures, Cloud services, etc.), the development of advanced and modular global monitoring and optimization algorithms for reconfiguration of machinery, robots and processes and, finally, to ensure the full interoperability, the harmonization and standardization of methods and protocols to enable the plug-and-produce readiness in heterogeneous environments. On the other hand, real industrial and business impacts, can be achieved by careful consideration of migration of legacy environments to the new approach and, where standard devices and/or applications remain, the coexistence and integration of existing systems. Implementing a robust and consistent KPI based operational and performance measuring approach, to really drive the behavior of the system according to the business and operational objectives, will ensure the achievement of measurable results. To such purpose PERFoRM project will deploy in four industrial testbeds belonging to different industrial domains to ensure a broad and sound validation of the concept and the platform. A successful deployment will be achieved not only by focusing on migration planning and deployment, but will also encompass the deployment in at least two designated industry driven experimental testbeds to optimize the deployment strategy and so minimize risks.