Energy sector is very broad and covers many areas of Research, Development and Innovation (R&D&I) and has crucial impact on society, industrial production, buildings, mobility and environment. R&D&I in the energy sector is closely connected with several research areas and more and more with bioeconomy and biotechnologies. For purpose of Roadmap 2021 three general cross-sectional energy RIs were identified in the following areas: i) energy materials; ii) artificial intelligence/deep learning; and iii) environment.

Publicly funded R&D&I in the energy sector is characterized by the transfer of innovative technologies to the industrial sector giving considerable advantage to the industrial companies. Due to this fact and taking into account the construction and operational costs of RIs, it would be important to involve private companies in construction or modernization of RIs in the future.

Current status

SPECIAL MATERIAL FOR ENERGY SYSTEM Energy technologies with their high and rapidly changing technical demands are particularly dependent on fast innovations in the structural and functional materials sector. The main research task in this context is to develop resource-efficient materials with increasing performance and reliability at lower costs – e.g. new materials for long-distance transportation of energy, improved construction materials for nuclear energy. At European level the topic is addressed in various cross-sectional aspects of the current key actions to the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) with research, development and innovation as key pillars of SET-Plan implementation. It finds expression in the strategy papers of correspondent research and industrial platforms – e.g. EERA, EIIs, EMIRI, Joint Technology Initiatives, or EURAMET. In addition, there is a strong need to continue in development of techniques for sophisticated, scale-bridging and multi-method characterization for energy materials and components in their working environment (in situ/in operando). This is especially the case for electrochemical/catalytic, electronic materials and devices or for materials under severe radiation.

Despite the availability of quite a number of methods and facilities, large cross-sectional RIs and research platforms explicitly dedicated to R&D or energy materials still often lack coherence with regard to combining results from different methods. The future of characterization therefore is expected not only to include individual techniques which are pushed to their limits, but also to create coherent and synergistic strategies employing a range of cutting-edge characterization methods to address complex multiscale problems in materials and systems. For all energy systems, circular use of either special material or other raw material should be considered.

DATA, SIMULATION AND MODELLING The multi-disciplinarity of energy-related themes means that it is difficult to identify a community for this field at first sight. The task is integrating activities with the objective of developing and applying scale bridging approaches to design new materials  and to study materials as well as energy related processes. Energy networks and systems, from local to macroscopic scales, need detailed and large volume data handling and model-based processing. Quite a number of cross-disciplinary energy-relevant  topics have to be addressed like, for example, new materials design; energy conversion processes; systems design and operational and lifecycle optimization. Further examples are process modelling for nuclear repositories, fusion reactor modelling or energy market modelling via high-resolution renewable energy production forecasts. The European Technology  Platform for High Performance Computing (ETP4HPC), and the ESFRI Landmark PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe, DIGIT) facilitate high-impact scientific discovery and engineering research and development across all disciplines. The new Energy oriented Centre of Excellence for computing applications (EoCoE), working closely with associated experimental and industrial groups, is expected to have a multiscale integrating character and contribute to filling this gap, along with databases and research platforms. Distributed RI platforms such as DERlab and ERIC-Lab and a rising number of national living laboratories collecting and processing data of complex real energy systems have the potential to advance the digital realtime integration of distributed and volatile energy resources into energy systems.

GAPS, CHALLENGES AND FUTURE NEEDS

ENERGY MATERIALS. Energy technologies with their high and rapidly changing technical demands are particularly dependent on fast innovations in the structural and functional materials sector. The main research task in this context is to develop resource-efficient materials with increasing performance and reliability at lower costs – e.g. new materials for long-distance transportation of energy, improved construction materials for nuclear energy. At European level the topic is addressed in various cross-sectional aspects of the current key actions to the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) with research, development and innovation as key pillars of SET-Plan implementation. It finds expression in the strategy papers of correspondent research and industrial platforms – e.g. EERA, EIIs, EMIRI, Joint Technology Initiatives, or EURAMET. In addition, there is a strong need to continue in development of techniques for sophisticated, scale-bridging and multi-method characterization for energy materials and components in their working environment (in situ/in operando). This is especially the case for electrochemical/catalytic, electronic materials and devices or for materials under severe radiation.

Despite the availability of quite a number of methods and facilities, large cross-sectional RIs and research platforms explicitly dedicated to R&D or energy materials still often lack coherence with regard to combining results from different methods. The future of characterization therefore is expected not only to include individual techniques which are pushed to their limits, but also to create coherent and synergistic strategies employing a range of cutting-edge characterization methods to address complex multiscale problems in materials and systems. For all energy systems, circular use of either special material or other raw material should be considered.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE/DEEP LEARNING (DATA, SIMULATION AND MODELLING) A list of centres for excellence in HPC can be found at
https://www.hpccoe.eu/eu-hpc-centres-of-excellence2/. An important task in energy sector is integrating different research and innovative activities with the objective of developing and applying scale bridging approaches. High-throughput screening and data processing by using of Artificial Intelligence/Deep Learning approaches are key to increase efficiency of R&D&I, the intelligent combination of data derived from R&D&I and quick exploitation of new results in practice. Energy networks and systems, from local to macroscopic scales, need detailed and large volume data handling and model-based processing. Quite a number of cross- disciplinary energy-relevant topics have to be addressed like, for example, new materials design; energy conversion processes; efficiency of energy production; energy transportation; systems design and operational/ lifecycle optimization. Further examples are process modelling for nuclear repositories, fusion reactor modelling or energy market modelling via high-resolution renewable energy production forecasts.

The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU)EuroHPC
https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/, the European Technology Platform for High Performance Computing (ETP4EU), and the ESFRI Landmark PRACE (DIGIT) facilitate high-impact scientific discovery and engineering research and development across all disciplines. Nine Centres of Excellence (CoEs) for computing applications are now runningBioExcel - Centre of Excellence for Biomolecular Research; COEGSS - Center of Excellence for Global Systems Science; CompBioMed - A Centre of Excellence in Computational Biomedicine; E-CAM - An e-infrastructure for software, training and consultancy in simulation and modelling; EoCoE - Energy oriented Centre of Excellence for computer applications; ESiWACE - Excellence in SImulation of Weather and Climate in Europe; MaX - Materials design at the eXascale; NoMaD - The Novel Materials Discovery Laboratory; POP - Performance Optimisation and Productivity). The aim is to strengthen Europe’s existing leadership in HPC applications and cover important areas like renewable energy, materials modelling and design, molecular and atomic modelling, climate change, Global System science, and bio-molecular research, and tools to improve HPC applications performance. The Energy oriented Centre of Excellence for computing applications (EoCoE, European Horizon 2020 funded project), working closely with associated experimental and industrial groups, has the mission to accelerate the transition to the production, storage and management of clean, decarbonized energy.

Distributed RI platforms such as DERlabDERlab
https://der-lab.net/ and ERIC-LabERIC-Lab
https://www.eric-lab.eu/ and a rising number of national living laboratories collecting and processing data of complex real energy systems have the potential to advance the digital real-time integration of distributed and volatile energy resources into energy systems.

ENVIRONMENT. Starting from the common challenge of monitoring and reducing the impact of energy production on environment, including energy-related CO2 emissions or safety issues, there are several strong links from energy to research questions tackled by RIs from the environmental field. First, there is the important task in energy sector to develop processes and technologies to substantially decrease or remove influence on environment (waste recovery - exhalation of pollutants, CO2 production, solid wastes including radioactive effluents, recovery of the area affected by intensive mining and questions referring to recycling and circular economy). Such research should be performed by common (distributed) RI involving researchers from both sectors (energy covering all needed technologies, from nuclear or geo-energy to underground CO2 storage etc.; environmental science covering e.g. climate-related observation and measurements, performed also from space). For example, the ESFRI Landmark EPOS ERIC (ENV) is active in the field of geology and therefore has strong links to geo-energy production and underground CO2 storage. Another example for this cross-sectional connection is the ESFRI Project EMPHASIS (H&F) which interacts with topics regarding bioenergy plant production. Climate-related observation and measurement platforms as ESFRI Landmark ICOS ERIC (ENV) and the ESFRI Landmark ACTRIS (ENV) are in direct line with energy research, as their task is to measure the environmental impact of the use of fossil fuels (and as well their future replacement by renewable energies).