Fuel cells have shown great promise for residential micro-Combined Heat and Power (mCHP) generation due to their high electrical efficiency and ability to run on conventional heating fuels. Technology leaders in this sector are nearing commercial deployment following extensive field trials but high capital costs remain a key challenge to the advancement of this sector and mass market introduction in Europe. The HEATSTACK project focuses on reducing the cost of the two most expensive components within the fuel cell system; the fuel cell stack and heat exchanger, which together represent the majority of total system CAPEX. Cost reductions of up to 60% for each component technology will be achieved by: - Advancing proven component technologies through the optimisation of design, materials and production processes for improved performance and quality; - Developing and applying novel tooling for laser welding and automated production lines to remove manual processing steps; - Improving cycle times and reducing time to market; - Demonstrating design flexibility and production scalability for mass manufacturing (10.000 units per annum); and - Developing core supply chain relationships to allow for competitive sourcing strategies. The HEATSTACK project represents a key step towards achieving commercial cost targets for fuel cell mCHP appliances, bringing together leading technology providers in the fuel cell mCHP supply chain with extensive industrial expertise to accelerate the development towards volume production of the fuel cell stacks and heat exchangers. Cost reductions will be achieved through advanced design, development and industrialisation of core manufacturing processes. Improvements to component performance with advanced materials will reduce system degradation and improve overall system efficiency and lifetime.

The CREATE project aims to tackle the thermal energy storage challenge for the built environment by developing a compact heat storage. This heat battery allows for better use of available renewables in two ways: 1) bridging the gap between supply and demand of renewables and 2) increasing the efficiency in the energy grid by converting electricity peaks into stored heat to be used later, increasing the energy grid flexibility and giving options for tradability and economic benefits. The main aim of CREATE is to develop and demonstrate a heat battery, ie an advanced thermal storage system based on Thermo-Chemical Materials, that enables economically affordable, compact and loss-free storage of heat in existing buildings. The CREATE concept is to develop stabilized storage materials with high storage density, improved stability and low price, and package them in optimized heat exchangers, using optimized storage modules. Full scale demonstration will be done in a real building, with regulatory/normative, economic and market boundaries taken into account. To ensure successful exploitation, the full knowledge, value, and supply chain are mobilized in the present consortium. It will be the game changer in the transformation of our existing building stock towards near-zero energy buildings. WP1 Management,WP2 Cost Analysis and planning for future commercial products cost,WP3 System definition,design and simulation,WP4 Thermal storage materials optimization (key breakthroughs),WP5 Critical storage components and technology development (key breakthroughs),WP6 Thermal storage reactor design, implementation and test,WP7 System integration, experiments and optimization,WP8 Building integration and full scale demonstration,WP9 Dissemination and exploitation of results. CREATE will create viable supply chain by bringing together multiple scientific disciplines and industry. In other words, CREATE envisions a multi-scale, multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach.

PACE is a major initiative aimed at ensuring the European mCHP sector makes the next move to mass market commercialisation. The project will deploy a total of 2,650 new fuel cell microCHP units with real customers and monitor them for an extended period. This will: - Enable fuel cell mCHP manufacturers to scale up production, using new series techniques, and increased automation. By 2018, four leading European manufacturers (Bosch, SOLIDpower, Vaillant and Viessmann) will have installed capacity for production of over 1,000 units/year (each will install over 500 units in PACE). These production lines will test the manufacturing techniques which will allow for mass market scale up and the reductions in unit cost which will come from associated economies of scale. - Allow the deployment of new innovations in fuel cell microCHP products, which reduce unit cost by over 30%, increase stack lifetime to over 10 years (by end of the project) and improve the electrical efficiency of all units. - Create a large dataset of the performance of the units, which will demonstrate the readiness of fuel cell mCHP as a mass market product. This will prove that fuel cell mCHP can be a leading contributor to reducing primary energy consumption and GHG emissions across Europe. - Allow the units in the trial to be pooled in a large scale test of the concept of aggregating and controlling the output from mCHP to act as a virtual power plant. This will be achieved in a project run by EWE on a section of the German grid earmarked for smart grid trials. - Act as the basis for an effort to standardise mCHP products in Europe, helping create a more efficient market for both installers and component suppliers. The project will provide an evidence base which will be used in a dissemination campaign targeting policy makers (who can provide supportive policies for the next wave of mCHP roll-out) and increasing awareness of the technology within the domestic heating sector (main route to market).

InterConnect envisages to contribute for the democratization of efficient energy management, through a flexible and interoperable ecosystem where demand side flexibility can be soundly integrated with effective benefits to end-users. In fact, over the last few years several projects and technology providers have come up with solutions that allow every energy user to have awareness and control over his appliances, but there has always been a major issue with interoperability. End-users should be able to choose and change their technology providers, without having to replace their installation, every time they feel this need and still be able to adopt sustainable behaviour and benefit from technological advances. In the energy sector, a steep move towards digital is occurring and becoming tremendously user-centric and market-driven. The system dimension is significant, as the number of energy service providers is increasing thanks to favourable regulatory environment and technology advancements for monitoring and control. This is the reason why this consortium integrates relevant partners from all the representative stakeholders in this new energy paradigm. Specific competences in ICT, IoT, energy, data science, software, were included and the full value chain, from R&D institutions, manufacturers, DSO, retailers, IT providers, and energy users is represented. To guarantee a higher Europe-wide impact, several relevant associations related with ICT and energy are also involved. To achieve a significant dimension, 7 large scale pilots, in different countries and with different end-users, are foreseen to guarantee representativeness and dimension in terms of number of appliances and services. The overarching objective of these pilots is to demonstrate a real digital market environment over electrical systems with significant amounts of DSF, reducing operational and investment costs that will benefit energy end-users and help EU achieve its energy efficiency objectives.