Horizon 2020, with a budget of around 80 billion euros, is the most important research and innovation programme in Europe. Created in 2014 by the European Commission, Horizon 2020 is a tool able to finance innovative projects, which aims to ensure the competitiveness of EU countries, , but also to attract national public and private investments, promoting scientific excellence and industrial and entrepreneurial leadership.
The goal of the programme is to develop a sustainable and inclusive economy, through innovative projects which can respond to current challenges and be implemented quickly and effectively.
Horizon 2020 is divided into different sectors: from nanotechnologies to bioeconomy, from space research to sustainable agriculture, from smart mobility to energy transition.
In this last sector Sinloc is gaining important recognition also in the European calls, thanks to its important track record initially gained in Italy. European projects have high expected impact, which can activate over 120 million euros of investment and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption from traditional sources.
The Horizon 2020 European projects in which Sinloc is currently involved, as a leader or as a partner, are:
EU Islands Facility NESOI – New Energy Solutions Optimised for Islands (2019-2023): Sinloc leads the NESOI consortium, which manages the Technical Assistance platform aimed at supporting European islands in the energy transition process, structuring and effectively activating investments in the sector. The project will provide non-repayable resources and technical, economic-financial assistance services to at least 60 projects selected by public calls. The Nesoi team estimates that these projects will then trigger investments of over one billion euros.
EENVEST – Risk Reduction For Building Energy Efficiency Investments (2019-2022): the objective of EENVEST is to create a platform for assessing the technical and financial risks of investments in energy efficiency in the commercial sector, including the indirect benefits of energy efficiency. The project received a contribution of 1.5 million euros obtained by the European Commission. EENVEST aims to involve, at European level, more than 100 stakeholders in the short term and more than 4.000 in the medium term. Within this project, Sinloc is primarily committed to identifying and developing models for assessing financial risks and investments, and their subsequent application.
PADOVAFIT EXPANDED! (2019 – 2022): the project, which received a European contribution of 1.5 million euros, aims at the structuring of “One-Stop-Shop” (OSS) for energy efficiency improvement in residential areas in Padua, also examining the possibility of replicating the model in other pilot areas at European level. The objective of the project is to involve 14 condominiums and 350 units in total, with an expected investment of 5.5 million and a CO2 saving of 763 tons per year. In particular, Sinloc is in charge of identifying the financing instruments and schemes to finance energy efficiency interventions, and analysing the sustainability of the applied measures.
SUPER-HEERO – Supermarket Human-based innovative financing schemes for Energy Efficiency Retrofitting and Optimisation (2020-2023): SUPER-HEERO is a project aimed at the creation of innovative and participatory business models for the implementation of energy efficiency interventions on the buildings of the Mass Distribution Organization. The project aims also to evaluate mechanisms of direct and indirect participation of the citizen-client in the interventions. SUPER-HEERO has obtained a contribution of 1.4 million euros from the European Commission, with the objective to activate potential investments for 5/9 million in the short and medium term and 70/120 million in the medium and long term for Spain and Italy. SUPER-HEERO attempts to involve about 88 stores in the short term, with an expected saving of about 7/14 thousand tons of CO2 per year. Sinloc’s contribution focuses on the design and development of models of involvement of different stakeholders.
HESTIA Holistic demand response Services for European residential communities (2020-2023): Sinloc is the leader of the HESTIA project, which aims at the flexible management of energy consumption in the residential sector, implementing demand-demand mechanisms response in three pilot projects in: Italy, Netherlands and France. The innovative approach regards the integration of technical and social components, actively involving citizens and intervening on behaviors for a better use of energy, in order to achieve energy savings of up to 20%.
GREENROAD (2021-2023): the project, with a European contribution of about 1.2 million euros, aims to establish national round tables on energy efficiency in buildings, in order to improve policies and implementation measures and encourage the sector’s ability to attract private capital. The project consortium is coordinated by ENEA and involves national key players such as ABI Lab and GSE.
POWERUP! (2021-2025): Powerup! studies and experiments innovative solutions to combat energy poverty, exploiting in particular renewable energy communities. The project proposes a participatory design approach with the territory and users directly affected by the phenomenon.
Sinloc is thus investing in creating solid foundations in terms of skills and concrete actions, in view of the new challenges that concern key issues such as competitiveness, sustainable growth and the fight against climate change, which is the subject of the new Horizon Europe programme (2021-2027), for which the European Commission has already allocated 100 billion euros.