A Greek-Turkish Solar Energy Excellence Hub to Advance the European Green Deal

Project Information

SolarHub

Grant agreement ID: 101086110

DOI

10.3030/101086110

EC signature date 10 November 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 31 December 2026

Funded under

• Widening participation and spreading excellence

Total cost

€ 4 846 397,50

EU contribution

€ 4 846 397,25

Coordinated by

ODTU GUNES ENERJISI UYGULAMA VE ARA STIRMA MERKEZI
Türkiye

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SolarHub (A Greek-Turkish Solar Energy Excellence Hub to Advance the European Green Deal)

Reporting period: 2024-04-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

SolarHub aims to connect and scale up five Greek and Turkish solar energy innovation ecosystems into a single, hybrid, cross-border, interconnected Solar Energy Excellence Hub to support Green Deal priorities and accelerate the Clean Energy Transition at local, national, regional, and European levels. The project was carefully structured to support this aim by strengthening co-creation skills in two ways. First, the consortium completes the quadruple helix at the central nodes for Greece (Thessaloniki) and Turkiye (Ankara) by including partners from academia, business, public authorities, and society, while the 3 satellite nodes (Athens, Istanbul, and Izmir) include partners from academia and business. Second, the project activities are purposefully based on inter-quadrant, interdisciplinary, and cross-border collaboration. The project has four strategic objectives: 1) to co-develop a Hub Strategy and a Joint Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda supported by appropriate policy and investment recommendations aligned with RIS3 and the Green Deal; 2) to execute a diverse set of complementary interventions to engage quadruple helix actors to support R&I and to accelerate commercialization of innovation results; 3) to implement joint R&I activities to co-develop 4 diverse pre-designs of solar energy solutions that explicitly align with the defined Joint Strategies and serve as innovation accelerators; and 4) to maximise the project’s impacts through Dissemination, Exploitation, and Communication activities carefully tuned to actively engage all players of the quadruple helix.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

To advance aligned priorities in Greece and Turkiye, the “Hub Board” developed a strategic roadmap outlining future actions, mitigation strategies, and recommendations that emphasizes 4 main actions: Greece-Türkiye Bilateral Call; Energy Communities; Participation in Sectoral Events; Identifying Market Gaps and Proposing Solutions. A Joint Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda (SRIA) was further developed through a detailed analysis of the national and international networks, human resources, opportunities emerging from the national energy transition policies & partnerships, and the global and national economic constraints and changing market dynamics. An important implication was the alignment of technological priorities and R&I interests in two encapsulating points: results produced during our project’s R&I activities and the alignment to existing SRIAs and other collaboration platforms relevant at EU level. A Bi-Lateral Greek-Turkish call was opened that will support the post-project sustainability and expansion of the SolarHub activities.

To strengthen innovation and entrepreneurial capacities and promote Open Science within our Hub, SolarHub executed a large number of activities including workshops, webinars, special sessions, other in-person events, inter-partner / cross-border mobility, and mentoring. A highlight is the creation of a “SolarSparks” initiative targeting promising young university students talent that aims to strengthen the Hub’s human resource capacities by “Giving our SolarSparks a Reason to Stay.” The 1st phase of SolarHub’s Accelerator Programme (AP) was launched. As highlights, one participant was subsequently selected to participate in the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Food’s 2025 EWA-Empowering Women in Agriculture programme and the outcomes were showcased in a “Demo Day” in Izmir, Turkiye, that attracted a diverse set of more than 150 in-person attendees. The Hub’s capacities to develop and implement Green Business Plans that integrate technical, economic, social, environmental, training, and legislative aspects continue to be advanced and linked to SolarHub’s AP and support the commercialization of SolarHub’s 4 Pre-Designs (PDs).

In PD1, a solar thermal solution for low temperature heat applications continues to be developed with activities focused on solar thermal collector, heat storage system, and smart control, with significant advances made in developing of a dimensioning tool.

In PD2, a solar-aided Hydrothermal Liquefaction (HTL) solution to treat agri-food residual products continues to be developed with the design being finalized, selected potential agri-food waste feedstocks being characterized, and the experimental being conducted to determine optimal conditions.

In PD3, a PV solution for power production and micro-climate creation for tree plants continues to be developed through consolidation of RP1 outcomes into a single systematic design approach that covers techno-economic, social, and regulatory aspects, including the development and streamlining of techno-economic tools.

In PD4, a PV solution for efficient crop production through light and water management continues to be advanced, with the development of seven structural and technological configurations that were tuned to regional agronomic conditions based on light distribution (PPFD), energy yield, and mechanical compatibility with crop operations.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

SolarHub continues to advance from a loose set of relatively disparate and limited networks into a single, high-performing, comprehensive, and synergistic cross-border solar energy Excellence Hub that is accelerating the Green Transitions in Greece and Turkiye. Note only have the technical collaborations on the pre-designs focused on novel non-concentrated and concentrated solar thermal and agrovoltaics advanced toward commercialization, but collaborations on energy communities have supported the creation of a new energy communities network and a successful follow-up Excellence Hubs project. More broadly, the sustainability of SolarHub has already been secured by SolarHub partners leveraging the ~4.8M€ in EU investments in the SolarHub project to secure an additional ~6.9M€ in competitive follow-up funds by the end of RP2 via 11 accepted proposals that are strongly linked to SolarHub. SolarHub partners were also key actors contributing to the realization of the bi-lateral Greek-Turkish call that closes in September 2025 that will contribute to sustaining and expanding Greek-Turkish collaborations both within and beyond solar energy. SolarHub has also taken the leading role in creating an Excellence Hubs (EH) Community with an aim to connect the 25 on-going EH projects to catalyze inter-project collaborations and share lessons-learned and best-practices to make more efficient and effective use of EU funding and increase project impacts.