Study on circular approaches for a sustainable and affordable clean energy transition

Funded by the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2021-2022 (Cluster 5 – Climate, Energy and Mobility) through a public procurement, the ‘Study on circular approaches for a sustainable and affordable clean energy transition’ aimed to strengthen the European Commission’s knowledge based approach in the early and continuous assessment of emerging clean energy technologies in the context of the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. In this Study, the adjectives “emerging” and “innovative” are used interchangeably and refer to technologies eligible for support from the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. This definition is an internal convention unrelated to preexisting definitions. To do so, Deloitte, VITO (Flemish Institute for Technological Research), PRé Sustainability, Ecoinnovazione and Circle Economy developed and delivered a robust Framework methodology designed to evaluate the multifaceted impacts of emerging clean (energy) technologies on the following dimensions:

• Sustainability, covering the environmental, social, and economic dimensions;
• Circularity; and
• EU resilience & Technological autonomy.

The specific Tasks conducted as part of this study of the Study were to:

• Provide an analysis of requirements in terms of sustainability, circularity and EU
  resilience & Technological autonomy identified in the Horizon Europe Work Programme
  2021-2022 and Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2024, with a specific focus on
  Destination 3 of Cluster 5.
• Conduct an in-depth analysis of the state of the art in methodologies and tools to
  assess the sustainability, circularity and EU resilience & Technological autonomy of
  emerging clean energy technologies28.
• Propose a general methodology for assessing emerging technologies’ contribution to
  sustainability, circularity, EU resilience, and technological autonomy. The assessment
  methodology has been tailored to accommodate different Technology Readiness Levels
  (TRLs) within the framework of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme for Research and
  Innovation.
• Develop detailed and user-friendly set of guidelines as an actionable tool for assessing
  emerging clean energy technologies on sustainability, circularity, EU resilience &
  Technological autonomy based on their TRLs.
  The figure below sets out the five key tasks of the study, and how these fit together.

source:
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