Storage of energy produced by decentralised sources Specific challenge: Electricity will increasingly be produced from sources which are geographically decentralised and/or are intermittent in their nature. There is thus an urgent need to increase the storage of energy, in order to improve on the stability of weak grids, to be able to intentionally island the electricity distribution, and to ensure the continuity of energy supply. Scope: Proposals should develop innovative materials solutions that will make storage technologies more available, better performing and more cost effective. The solutions should exploit synergies between technologies as much as possible, contributing to the development of hybrid systems. Support from integrated computational/experimental approaches is envisaged. Activities addressing enhanced performance of chemical storage of hydrogen will be covered by the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking, and hence outside the scope of this topic.For this topic, proposals should include an outline of the initial exploitation and business plans, which will be developed further in the proposed project.Wherever possible, proposers could actively seek synergies, including possibilities for funding, with relevant national / regional research and innovation programmes and/or cumulative funding with European Structural and Investment Funds in connection with smart specialisation strategies. For this purpose the tools provided by the Smart Specialization Platform, Eye@RIS3 may be useful[1]. The initial exploitation and business plans will address such synergies and/or additional funding. Exploitation plans, outline financial arrangements and any follow-up will be developed further during the project. The results of these activities as well as the envisaged further activities in this respect should be described in the final report of the project.Activities expected to focus on Technology Readiness Level 5. The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU between EUR 6 and 8 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts. Expected impact: Alleviation of geographical constraints for low carbon energy production, with increased efficiencies at a reduced cost; Reduction of the barriers to increase the penetration rate of distributed and /or intermittent renewable energy sources; Realisation of a new generation of energy technologies that will support the competitiveness of European industries through the realisation of a new generation of storage technologies based on advanced materials; Implementation of relevant parts of the Materials Roadmap Enabling Low Carbon Energy Technologies (SEC (2011) 1609), and relevant objectives of the SET-Plan.Type of action: Research & Innovation Actions [1] http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu; the relevant Managing Authorities can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/indexes/in_your_country_en.cfm
