What is RISEnergy Project?
Research Infrastructure Services for Renewable Energy (RISEnergy) project is dedicated to fostering a long-term, coordinated research effort among leading private companies and research institutions to advance energy technologies within the EU.
RISEnergy targets the EU’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme topic focused on “Research infrastructure services to enable R&I addressing main challenges and EU priorities,’’ specifically addressing the sub-topic “RI services for renewable energy technologies and systems”.
In this regard, RISEnergy aims to integrate services provided through a network of energy-related research infrastructures (RIs) in both the EU and Associated Countries, namely in the fields of Photovoltaics (PV), Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)/ Solar Thermal Electricity (STE), Hydrogen, Biofuels, Wind Energy, Ocean Energy, Integrated Grids, Energy Storage, Material Science and Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
Against this backdrop, RISEnergy’s mission focuses on six central objectives:
Innovation and Efficiency: Aiming to increase energy efficiency and reduce energy technology costs, promoting wide use of renewable energy through proactive innovation management. This includes tailored support for academics, industry, and SMEs, as well as providing a suite of complementary services in the fields of information and communications technology (ICT), networking, and environmental impact analysis that will guide the key stakeholders of the project.
Access and Training: Providing over 50,000 hours of access to world-leading research facilities, RISEnergy offers both on-site and virtual infrastructure access, along with comprehensive training programmes to support renewable energy technologies and systems.
Research Infrastructure Ecosystem: Establishing a robust research infrastructure ecosystem, RISEnergy aims to engage stakeholders from academic and industry research and development (R&D), SMEs, policymakers, and citizens, covering the above-mentioned renewable energy technologies.
Cross-RI Services: Delivering unparalleled cross-RI services to accelerate Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), a scale used to measure the maturity of technologies, as well as system integration, fostering collaboration across disciplines. This includes information and communication technology (ICT) platforms, digital services, and frameworks for data management and sustainability assessments.
Education and Training: Addressing the needs of those utilising its services with targeted education and training activities, supporting access planning, innovation acceleration, and cross-RI service exploitation.
European Coordination: Promoting and coordinating international access to renewable energy research infrastructures, enhancing the effective use of these resources across Europe.
Through these widespread efforts, RISEnergy is committed to driving sustainable energy solutions and shaping the future of energy innovation in Europe. Moreover, key facts about the implementation of the project are listed below:
- Coordinator: Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (DE)
- Duration: 4.5 years
- Start: 1st March 2024
- End: 31th August 2028
- Budget: €14,5 million
- Beneficiaries: 68 organisations
- Research Infrastructures: 84 (81 Transnational Access and 3 Virtual Access)
- Countries involved: 19 European countries and 3 non-European countries (United States, Japan and Canada)
- Funding: European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme
Project Objectives
The core purpose of RISEnergy lies in creating an extensive European ecosystem to accelerate research and innovation (R&I) on renewable energy technologies.
In bringing this key goal to fruition, the project will address six main objectives, all of which are described in detail below.
Main Objective 1
Enable research and innovation to increase energy efficiency and reduce the cost of energy technologies to foster wider use of renewables in energy systems through proactive innovation management on two sub-levels:
- The individual level, by providing a unique entry point to research infrastructure (RI) services for academics, industry, and SMEs;
- The global level, by advising stakeholders, RI providers, academic and industry RI users, and policymakers on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), information and communications technology (ICT) development and broad networking issues.
Main Objective 2
Provide transnational access (TA) and virtual access (VA) to the top research facilities across Europe and a few international, as well as infrastructure-specific training to support innovation in renewable energy technologies and systems. Within the framework of the project, this notably involves the provision of more than 50,000 hours of access to those major European and international world-leading research facilities.
Main Objective 3
Set-up an extensive RI-ecosystem and reach out to the following relevant stakeholders:
- Academia and industry research and development (R&D) departments, including SMEs, performing research along the value chain, from materials and technology development to applications in the eight main RISEnergy renewable target areas: photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power/solar thermal energy (CSP/STE), hydrogen, biofuels, offshore wind, ocean energy, integrated grids and energy storage. Additionally, research in the cross-cutting areas materials research and information and communication technologies (ICT) to enable a smart energy system;
- Energy-related research infrastructure (RI) providers;
- Policymakers involved in shaping the renewable energy landscape;
- Citizens, particularly those with a keen interest in research and innovation in the energy field.
Main Objective 4
Provide comprehensive cross-RI services of unprecedented quality to support and accelerate renewable energy technologies and systems, Technology Readiness Level (TRL) progression and energy system integration, fostering collaboration across technology disciplines and stakeholder groups. Key sub-objectives in this area include:
- Identifying information and communication technologies (ICT) enabling platforms, along with promoting and exemplifying their application usage;
- Creating frameworks for digital services, systems and digital twins, notably incorporating “data as a service” (DaaS) and “simulation as service” (SaaS) to support physical and virtual RI access and open data;
- Establishing metadata structures along the value chain, from materials and devices to frameworks and systems, in order to assist RI users within the project in finding the most suitable metadata schemata to support FAIR data management;
- Integrating Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), critical raw materials (CRM) and socio-economic factors to drive member state acceptance of selected technologies, as well as remove barriers to commercialisation, while also incorporating sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs) and recommendations for future research.
Main Objective 5
Implement education and training activities that address the needs of those utilising RISEnergy’s research infrastructure services, primarily regarding access planning, access execution, innovation acceleration and exploitation of cross-RI services, taking into account variations in background knowledge and time constraints of potential users.
Main Objective 6
Establish a European reference organisation to promote and coordinate international RI-access in energy research, coming from and to Europe, for a more effective use of relevant renewable energy research facilities.
Context and Challenges
The European Green Deal aims to transform the EU into a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy, achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, decoupling economic growth from resource use, and implementing policies that “leave no person or place behind”.
The European Commission has adopted a series of proposals aimed at shaping EU climate, energy, transport and taxation policies to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% from 1990 levels by 2030. This target requires the implementation of measures to increase energy efficiency, a greater share of renewable energy, modernised grids and more sustainable energy storage within the energy system by 2030. To achieve these goals, research and innovation plays a crucial role in ensuring that technological results are brought to market through an accelerated innovation chain in line with the established European timeframe.
The European Commission has also created a series of research and innovation initiatives to improve the efficiency, competitiveness, and cost-effectiveness of the energy system. Building on these efforts, and in close cooperation with the missions and partnerships of Horizon Europe (HEU), as well as the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan), the RISEnergy project will establish a proactive innovation management system. This system will support research, industries and SMEs in implementing a more targeted approach to developing new technologies for transforming the energy system, particularly by leveraging the EU’s valuable research infrastructures (RI) and expertise in renewable energy technologies.
The RISEnergy Approach
The central approach of RISEnergy revolves around three key activities designed to lay the foundation of a novel Renewable Energy RI Ecosystem:
- Access to outstanding research infrastructures (RIs)
- Access to cross-RI services
- Access to proactive innovation management
RISEnergy intends to create a large community of research infrastructures, offering free access to academic and industry researchers seeking to strengthen their innovative capacities. RISEnergy materialises the most extensive Transnational Access (TA) programme ever deployed for renewables across all EU framework programmes. It encompasses 84 TAs covering all target areas of renewable Ris, along with three Virtual Access (VA) RIs in the project’s portfolio. The energy technology areas covered are Photovoltaics (PV), Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)/Solar Thermal Electricity (STE), Hydrogen, Biofuels, Wind Energy, Ocean Energy, Integrated Grids and Energy Storage, as well as two cross-cutting areas, Materials Research and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
This project configuration allows for the combination of systems across the whole value chain, from materials manufacturing to recycling and system integration. In this regard, to ensure an effective and successful infrastructure selection process, the RIs were chosen by panels of experts across all relevant research areas. The selection criteria included both excellence and impact, with emphasis on the expected number of users accessing the service. As a result, RISEnergy aims to provide an entry point to research infrastructures for approximately 250 users, totalling around 2,500 days of Transnational Access, supported by a budget of €10 million.
Moreover, to add value to RISEnergy beyond RI access, approximately one-third of the funding is allocated to creating synergies between the renewable energy target areas, thereby maximising the innovative impact of these access opportunities. Users will also benefit from RISEnergy’s cross-cutting services and proactive innovation management activities.
Technology clusters covered in RISEnergy
Furthermore, RISEnergy aims for a well-distributed coverage across European partners to allow the majority of Europe’s researchers to access dedicated technology research facilities. This goal is primarily achieved by limiting to three the maximum number of RIs provided by a single organisation. The composition of the selected facilities covers all the above-mentioned energy technology areas. RISEnergy will also consider widening its RI portfolio according to user requests and upon internal validation.
Work Packages
As RISEnergy works towards providing customised and efficient research infrastructure services to accelerate and enhance innovative capacities in renewable energy technologies, the basis through which the project’s work will be carried is structured along the following five distinct Work Packages:
RISEnergy WP structure
Work Package 1 (WP1): Building an energy RI ecosystem
This Work Package is responsible for setting up the project’s research infrastructure ecosystem by engaging experts to foster discussions and provide feedback on various activities carried out within the project. Among other activities, best practices and lessons learnt from existing and relevant initiatives and networks of RIs will be exchanged to make transnational access to the project’s research services widely available and effective. Furthermore, those involved in WP1 will work towards identifying technology and research gaps by analysing various RI roadmaps and relevant documents and provide a foundation for future research efforts to address the challenges of the green transition. Additionally, the potential for new research infrastructures as part of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) in the renewable energy field will be evaluated. Finally, contact will be made with relevant European and international initiatives to provide key advice on funding programmes and research and innovation (R&I) agendas, while also ensuring the acceleration of technological innovation and market uptake.
Work Package 2 (WP2): Transnational and Virtual Access to world-class Research Infrastructures
This Work Package provides industrial and academic researchers with free transnational and virtual access to a selection of the best European and international research infrastructure facilities. It will cover research and innovation activities across all relevant renewable energy technologies, as carried out by RI users, who will be granted access to the research facilities on the basis of relevant criteria and a peer review process carried out by the project’s expert Selection Panel.
Work Package 3 (WP3): Cross-cutting and RES RI-Services to support technologies, systems and policymakers
The core focus of Work Package 3 involves the creation of cross-RI services to support and accelerate Technology Readiness Level (TRL) progression in renewable energy sources (RES) and energy system integration, fostering collaboration across technology disciplines and stakeholder groups. Activities include the identification of information and communication technologies (ICT) enabling platforms, as well as the creation of a framework for digital services, systems and digital twins and the establishment of metadata services along the value chain. Finally, this work package will aim to integrate Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), critical raw materials (CRM), and socio-economic factors to drive member states’ and citizens’ acceptance of selected technologies
Work Package 4 (WP4): Proactive Innovation Management
The fourth Work Package of RISEnergy is focused on fostering individual ideas and transfering knowledge to relevant stakeholders. Through collaboration with innovators, it will provide a key pathway for technology development and maximise synergies between renewable energy sectors. Through WP4, a thorough technical assessment of transnational access (TA) reports will be conducted to identify further opportunities for broadening engagement with industry and policy stakeholders relevant to innovation support and development. A final aim of this Work Package is the organisation of research infrastructure training activities to support the RISEnergy ecosystem, with emphasis on cross-RI services and innovation support activities.
Work Package 5 (WP5): Project Management, Outreach and Engagement
This Work Package focuses on the administrative management of the project. It also undertakes dissemination, exploitation, outreach and engagement activities to efficiently inform and advertise about the RI facilities and services offered by the project, as well as its results to a relevant audience, while also interacting with a broad range of stakeholders to maximise RISEnergy’s impact.