Periodic Reporting for period 2 - StoRIES (Storage Research Infrastructure Eco-System)
Reporting period: 2023-05-01 to 2024-10-31
The European Green Deal requires new Energy Storage (ES) technologies (Techs) to supply more flexibility & balance in the grid, providing back-up to intermittent renewable energy and contribute to seasonal ES challenges. To achieve performing, competitive and cost-effective ES devices, StoRIES fosters an EU eco-system of industry (I) & research (R) organisations (ORGs) on ES Techs aimed at developing novel concepts & Techs. The main objectives are linked to ES development by providing access to world-class Research Infrastructures (RIs) & services, with focus on improving materials for devices, optimizing Hybrid Energy Storage System (HESS), analysing of socio-technical and environmental aspects, and providing training & education.
MO1: Foster an EU eco-system of I&R ORGs on HES Techs , involving at least 200 ORGs, to develop novel concepts & Techs with a view to make them more competitive & reducing costs.
MO2: Provide EU I&A (Academia) researchers access to world-class ES RIs needed for the development of new Techs & fostering innovation.
MO3: Enlarge & advance the integration of the EU ES community through new cross-border & interdisciplinary services between the operators of RIs, I&A. The focus will be on improving materials for devices & optimizing HESS.
MO4: Enhance innovation by involving I experts in setting up & implementing a pro-active innovation support scheme by knowledge and data sharing following FAIR principles (FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and by the selection, the socio-economic evaluation, and the promotion of innovative Techs.
MO5: Ensure the long-term sustainability of ES research by
SO5a: defining scenarios & strategic roadmaps for the future integration of facilities from the R&I community for accelerating the development of ES Techs.
SO5b: setting up a framework for the scientific and technical training of young researchers (at least 200) from R&I, which will be vital for sustaining the innovation process.
MO6: Establish an EU reference organisation to promote & coordinate the intl. cooperation in ES research from & to EU.
MO1: Foster an EU eco-system of I&R ORGs on HES Techs , involving at least 200 ORGs, to develop novel concepts & Techs with a view to make them more competitive & reducing costs.
MO2: Provide EU I&A (Academia) researchers access to world-class ES RIs needed for the development of new Techs & fostering innovation.
MO3: Enlarge & advance the integration of the EU ES community through new cross-border & interdisciplinary services between the operators of RIs, I&A. The focus will be on improving materials for devices & optimizing HESS.
MO4: Enhance innovation by involving I experts in setting up & implementing a pro-active innovation support scheme by knowledge and data sharing following FAIR principles (FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and by the selection, the socio-economic evaluation, and the promotion of innovative Techs.
MO5: Ensure the long-term sustainability of ES research by
SO5a: defining scenarios & strategic roadmaps for the future integration of facilities from the R&I community for accelerating the development of ES Techs.
SO5b: setting up a framework for the scientific and technical training of young researchers (at least 200) from R&I, which will be vital for sustaining the innovation process.
MO6: Establish an EU reference organisation to promote & coordinate the intl. cooperation in ES research from & to EU.
MO1: StoRIES eco-system includes more than 250 organizations from 30 countries worldwide:
• Partners (17), Linked Third Parties (LTPs 18), Trans National Access (TNA) & Virtual Access (VA providers (115), Extended Network (53), EERA JP ES members (41)
• Experts: AB (8), SP (45), WGs (76), TNA users (49), early-stage network (36), mentoring programme (12), summer schools (82), contributors of 2 books (41)
• 4 workshops (WSs) & 4 online events with more than 500 participants in total
• Almost 300 subscribers to the Newsletter
• 1.370 LinkedIn followers
MO2: Rules & procedures for TNA were developed and 5 calls were opened. The number of applications & the unit-weeks of access steadily increased by each call (13 in TNA1, 46 exp. in TNA2, 63 exp. in TNA3, 63 exp in TNA4 and 87 exp in TNA 5), which would correspond to a total of 283 unit-weeks.
MO3: An agnostic materials intelligence platform, meta-data framework, several AI/ML frameworks for materials selection & recommendation have been developed & offered in a high degree of adaptability. For the assessment of complex application scenarios, the methodological advancements have been developed, defining a complete framework for cross-domain & multi-model assessment of performance indicators at materials, device & energy system application level. For Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at storage device level, suitable aggregation methods for dynamic & static performance indicators were defined.
MO4:
• Key ES Techs were identified to understand synergy potentials and to solve methodological issues that arise in cross-domain hybridisation. "Scale-up of Energy Materials" and "Benchmarking for HES" WSs, more that 70 participants each, were organized in Karlsruhe (Mar. 22).
• A precise and in-depth questionnaire on the topic of FAIR was developed enabling a detailed analysis of the level of FAIRness achieved by each laboratory from A & I.
• Different methodologies and tools to assess the technical & socio-economic performance of ES Techs were harmonised. Two WSs “FAIR & open data for environmental, techno-economic & socio-economic assessments” held online in October 2022 and "Establishing a Unified Framework for Assessing Sustainability to Unleash the Potential of HESS" held in Vienna (Dec. 23) with 44 participants, were organised.
MO5/SO5a: Two key documents were drafted:
• A Technology Roadmap which serves as a comprehensive guide for strategic and long-range planning for HES including the identification of 17 specific case studies addressing industrial, grid, off-grid, transport, and building applications.
• A SRIA which defines and prioritizes research areas that require deeper exploration to accelerate the deployment of HESS: i) System resiliency & long duration ES; ii) System integration of multi-vector ES & conversion; iii) Extending lifetime of energy system & generation equipment via hybridisation; iv) Digitalisation, energy management systems; and v) Regulatory framework for standardization of HES.
MO5/SO5b: Training activities include:
• Early-stage Researcher Network with 36 participants
• Mentoring Programme with 6 mentor-mentee pairs
• 2 Summer Schools with 51 participants in total
• Training Programme for Master Students with over 130 registrations globally
• 9 Online Courses for Workforce from A & I
• Online Platform offering open academic courses on ES.
MO6: Different activities were carried out to connect to intl. stakeholders:
• Strengthening contacts to NRCan (CA)
• Initiate contacts with US (DOE, NSF) at the 7th MI Ministerial conference in Pittsburgh (Sept. 22)
• Organization of an intl. series of WSs “Energy Materials for Innovation” together with EERA.
• Partners (17), Linked Third Parties (LTPs 18), Trans National Access (TNA) & Virtual Access (VA providers (115), Extended Network (53), EERA JP ES members (41)
• Experts: AB (8), SP (45), WGs (76), TNA users (49), early-stage network (36), mentoring programme (12), summer schools (82), contributors of 2 books (41)
• 4 workshops (WSs) & 4 online events with more than 500 participants in total
• Almost 300 subscribers to the Newsletter
• 1.370 LinkedIn followers
MO2: Rules & procedures for TNA were developed and 5 calls were opened. The number of applications & the unit-weeks of access steadily increased by each call (13 in TNA1, 46 exp. in TNA2, 63 exp. in TNA3, 63 exp in TNA4 and 87 exp in TNA 5), which would correspond to a total of 283 unit-weeks.
MO3: An agnostic materials intelligence platform, meta-data framework, several AI/ML frameworks for materials selection & recommendation have been developed & offered in a high degree of adaptability. For the assessment of complex application scenarios, the methodological advancements have been developed, defining a complete framework for cross-domain & multi-model assessment of performance indicators at materials, device & energy system application level. For Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at storage device level, suitable aggregation methods for dynamic & static performance indicators were defined.
MO4:
• Key ES Techs were identified to understand synergy potentials and to solve methodological issues that arise in cross-domain hybridisation. "Scale-up of Energy Materials" and "Benchmarking for HES" WSs, more that 70 participants each, were organized in Karlsruhe (Mar. 22).
• A precise and in-depth questionnaire on the topic of FAIR was developed enabling a detailed analysis of the level of FAIRness achieved by each laboratory from A & I.
• Different methodologies and tools to assess the technical & socio-economic performance of ES Techs were harmonised. Two WSs “FAIR & open data for environmental, techno-economic & socio-economic assessments” held online in October 2022 and "Establishing a Unified Framework for Assessing Sustainability to Unleash the Potential of HESS" held in Vienna (Dec. 23) with 44 participants, were organised.
MO5/SO5a: Two key documents were drafted:
• A Technology Roadmap which serves as a comprehensive guide for strategic and long-range planning for HES including the identification of 17 specific case studies addressing industrial, grid, off-grid, transport, and building applications.
• A SRIA which defines and prioritizes research areas that require deeper exploration to accelerate the deployment of HESS: i) System resiliency & long duration ES; ii) System integration of multi-vector ES & conversion; iii) Extending lifetime of energy system & generation equipment via hybridisation; iv) Digitalisation, energy management systems; and v) Regulatory framework for standardization of HES.
MO5/SO5b: Training activities include:
• Early-stage Researcher Network with 36 participants
• Mentoring Programme with 6 mentor-mentee pairs
• 2 Summer Schools with 51 participants in total
• Training Programme for Master Students with over 130 registrations globally
• 9 Online Courses for Workforce from A & I
• Online Platform offering open academic courses on ES.
MO6: Different activities were carried out to connect to intl. stakeholders:
• Strengthening contacts to NRCan (CA)
• Initiate contacts with US (DOE, NSF) at the 7th MI Ministerial conference in Pittsburgh (Sept. 22)
• Organization of an intl. series of WSs “Energy Materials for Innovation” together with EERA.
StoRIES is the first EU project providing users with access to 64 world-class RIs on ES, creating a basis for discussion to build up an EU Strategy Forum on RIs (ESFRI) on HES. StoRIES also develops a general framework guide specifying the requirements for cross-level modelling, which, combined with access to RIs, provides a fast track to innovation and establishes a (Material Intelligence Platform) MIP interlinking all relevant materials research IT & characterisations to accelerate materials development at the User end. By integrating more partners from western Europe, widening countries & intl. peer research partners, StoRIES is enlarging the eco-system on hybrid ES and offering the first education programme on HES at EU level.
StoRIES objectives are enhancing synergies and complementary capabilities among existing infrastructures, leading to improved and harmonised services, and fostering economies of scale and improved use of resources across Europe thanks to less duplication of services, common development and optimisation of operations. Users, from both the scientific and I community, benefit from integrated and efficient access to the best RIs as well as from advanced services addressing their specific needs. This enables breakthrough R&I across the whole value chain and in line with a life-cycle approach, in view of possible industrial applications. It also fosters the development of new skills and a new generation of researchers ready to optimally exploit the most advanced instruments and resources for R&I addressing GD challenges.
StoRIES objectives are enhancing synergies and complementary capabilities among existing infrastructures, leading to improved and harmonised services, and fostering economies of scale and improved use of resources across Europe thanks to less duplication of services, common development and optimisation of operations. Users, from both the scientific and I community, benefit from integrated and efficient access to the best RIs as well as from advanced services addressing their specific needs. This enables breakthrough R&I across the whole value chain and in line with a life-cycle approach, in view of possible industrial applications. It also fosters the development of new skills and a new generation of researchers ready to optimally exploit the most advanced instruments and resources for R&I addressing GD challenges.