SUNERGY Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda

To mitigate climate change, our society must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and find solutions to move away from fossil resources. The European Union is clear to stay on a steady path to climate neutrality through the ‘Fit for 55’ package, with the EU Green Deal as a blueprint. Renewable energy based on photovoltaics and wind energy needs to be supplemented with energy carriers to supply fuels to sectors and processes difficult to electrify and to create non-fossil carbon feedstock for the chemical industry. These so-called solar fuels and chemicals are based on the transformation of abundant compounds, such as carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen, into synthetic fuels, chemicals and materials by using renewable energy. 

SUNERGY is an open community advocating for solar fuels and chemicals as the new paradigm for a climate-neutral Europe in 2050. The community consists of a wide-range group of experts from industry, academia and society with more than 300 supporters. SUNERGY aims to become a large European Research and Innovation initiative working towards converting and storing renewable energy into fossil-free fuels and chemicals, complementing the scope of existing European partnerships.

With this goal, we are delighted to present you SUNERGY’s Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda on Solar Fuels and Chemicals (SRIA). Based on the SUNRISE Technological Roadmap, the Energy-X Research Needs report and Mission Innovation’s IC5 report, a core working group has merged and developed these ideas into the present document over the last three years. 

The result is a living document which will be further developed with the SUNERGY community into a full solar fuels and chemicals technological roadmap. A big step forward has been the SUNERGY Joint roadmapping workshop on the future of solar fuels and chemicals, uniting over 140 stakeholders from industry, policy, and academia on 15/16 June 2022, Brussels. These dedicated actions are enabled by the EU Coordination and Support Action SUNER-C (Grant Agreement no. 101058481) funded for the June 2022 – May 2025 period. 

How to get involved in shaping this strategic document for accelerating the development of solar fuels and chemicals? Please download the SRIA document, read it and provide any input using the form on the SUNER-C webpage. Besides, you are welcome to subscribe to our newsletter to get to know about the future workshops prepared for 2023!

Upcoming roadmapping activities: Inspired by the feedback from the participants of the SUNERGY roadmapping workshop, a Whitepaper on the SUNERGY Roadmap will be published online at the beginning of 2023. The next step will be the publication of a critical consolidated overview of the state-of-the-art, to be released also at the beginning of 2023. These strategic documents will be made widely available to the solar fuels and chemicals community and opened for your consultation and feedback as well.

If you want to interact closely in the elaboration of these documents, please contact us and become an expert in one of the Roadmap Working Groups.

Name: Joanna Kargul

Country: Poland

Organisation: Warsaw University

Department: Centre of New Technologies

Lab: Laboratory of Solar Fuels

Function: Associate Professor and Head of the Solar Fuels Laboratory

Please, tell us a bit about the work you do

I work at the Centre of New Technologies (CeNT) at the University of Warsaw where I lead my group, Solar Fuels Laboratory working on solar fuels and natural photosynthesis. In my group we apply the principles of natural photosynthesis in semi-synthetic solar-to-fuel systems. We want to simplify the natural process of photosynthesis by converting sunlight and atmospheric CO2 into simple molecules that can serve as fuel or as high value products.

One part of my group focuses on photosynthesis: how it is regulated and how it can be sustained under harsh conditions. The other part of my group applies the fundamental knowledge of natural photosynthesis to construct the nanodevices that convert CO2 and water into useful compounds with the power of sunlight. We mainly focus on the photosystem I (PSI) enzyme to use it as a biophotocatalyst for CO2 and proton reduction into chemicals. We do this not through trial and error but through rational design of energy and electron transfer pathways.   

When did your passion for the work you do start?

Mainly during my postdoc at Imperial College London where I worked with Professor Jim Barber, a true pioneer and visionary in structural studies of the macromolecular photosynthetic complexes and the intricacies of photosynthetic regulation of solar energy conversion. I joined the group at an exciting time when his lab provided the first de novo structure of photosystem II (PSII), the water splitting enzyme that is at the heart of natural photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the fundamental process for all life on earth, so I am really passionate about that.

My PhD actually had a different focus, on plant molecular biology and biochemistry. I worked on the membrane transporter that is involved in hormone signaling in plants. I was able to prove the function of the gene product, the auxin transporter, which was not known at that time.

Membrane proteins were always very close to my heart. During MSc studies and first postdoc I focused on various stresses in plants and how they affect the specific metabolic processes. In my second postdoc project I focused on the structure of photosynthetic complexes, in particular, the structure of the catalytic centre of the water splitting enzyme and structural basis of energy redistribution between photosystems in fluctuating light. Then somehow, I have come full circle by coming back to these topics that I initially studied as early as in my MSc studies.  

What was it like, moving from biology into chemistry?

Setting goals outside your comfort zone is challenging, but I like a challenge. My dream was to have a team of passionate and talented scientists who can work on the biological aspects of photosynthesis and translate the fundamental knowledge of photosynthesis to create something new and exciting in chemistry with semi-synthetic, and in future, fully synthetic solar converting systems.

My team at CeNT consists of biochemists and plant physiologists who work on the natural process of photosynthesis with a focus on extremophilic (volcanic) microalgae that thrive in an environment that is hostile to other forms of life. The other part of my team led by organic chemist and electrochemist isolates the photoenzymes from these extremophilic microalgae and integrates them via organic molecular wires into various electrode materials. A detailed electrochemical and spectroscopic study of electron and energy transfer pathways follows the construction of each nanoconfiguration, often accompanied by quantum mechanical investigation of these processes.

The overarching goal is to provide rational design of biohybrid photoelectrodes that can operate in a very broad range of conditions. Ultimately, we want to construct robust and well-performing hybrids of photoenzymes with synthetic CO2-converting catalysts as part of semi-synthetic (biomolecular) artificial leaves.  

What is your advice to the chemist who wants to work with a biologist, and vice versa?

You have to find a common language and be able to explain complicated processes in such a way that any scientist can understand it. In our group seminars I ask people to present their data in such a way that everyone can understand it. This is always challenging at first but after a few meetings everyone is able to do so.

I consider this one of my biggest achievements with this group, that we achieved a very good level of understanding that is the driving force for making important discoveries in natural and artificial photosynthesis. This is achieved by combining expertise from various fields to get as much understanding of a process as possible so as to improve the performance of our natural and biomolecular photosynthetic systems.

Is there a new collaboration you would like to explore – any new ventures, new research avenues?

I would be interested to work with a synthetic biology toolkit to engineer enzymes with improved performance, including better product selectivity or robustness at ambient conditions. Ultimately, we want to develop a device that can split water, producing oxygen as an inevitable by-product. Engineering enzymes that can withstand oxygen and still preserve catalytic activity is still very big challenge.

With SUNERGY you work towards fossil-free fuels and chemicals for a climate-neutral Europe. When do you think we will have achieved that?

This is already happening, but not at the scale we want to make a real difference. But we have no choice, we have to combine all the efforts of the best brains in the world, the best engineering skills in the world and the political will to speed up this development. That will allow us to efficiently use the most abundant and for sure most democratic form of energy in the world, that is sunlight.

Most promising solar-to-fuel technologies are at a low TRL at the moment. If we truly want to make a difference, then we need to match our best efforts with sustained and substantial funding for research and development. We cannot afford to have scattered R&D efforts because there is a real urgency to come with technology that can be introduced into the market and provide a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

What role do you see for SUNERGY in this?

One of the strengths of SUNERGY is that it brings these very valuable but presently very scattered efforts together. If we continue with scattered efforts like now, I am afraid that we will never reach our targets.

SUNERGY offers a unique platform that brings together researchers, engineers and other stakeholders from various fields who want to work together to address the issue of replacing fossil fuels. Without combining various disciplines, we will not be able to think outside the box, truly understand how to rationally overcome the challenges we face in the intricate processes involved in solar conversion, such as improved product yield, to ever make a big difference in the global energy landscape.

What we also need is the large-scale investment that SUNERGY advocates for with the European Commission and national political bodies.

What would be your advice for this generation of students?

Think about whether you want to make a difference in this world, the answer is probably ‘yes’. I see a lot of passion in the students and postdocs I work with and a lot of awareness of the global challenges we face. If you want to make a difference, the area of artificial photosynthesis is very attractive, now and definitely in the future.

The role for SUNERGY here is to make sure that the education of young people is invested in, including PhD and postdoc programmes, and again, ensuring that funding in these important disruptive technologies and associated fundamental science is sustained long-term. We need a sustained and expanding group of brilliant young minds that can come up with solutions to improve the stability and performance of the systems we work, that can carry out rational systems integration.

My advice to young people is to invest their time in this field, acquiring the interdisciplinary and transferable high-level skills that will be part of the jobs of the future.

Finally, anything you would like to ask the SUNERGY community?

I would be interested to hear how the community perceives SUNERGY, how they think they can benefit from it and how we can make a real difference for replacing fossil fuels. It would be wonderful to get some feedback from the community to ensure that we are working on in sync with the community’s needs.

On 29 April over 200 participants from 27 countries gathered online for the CO2 Value Europe – SUNERGY joint brokerage event on EU funding. 47% of these participants worked in industry, 36% worked in academia while the remaining share of participants worked in consultancy, associations, policy making, funding or elsewhere.

The brokerage event started with opening remarks and an introduction from the organizers by Célia Sapart (Director Communications and Climate Science at CO2 Value Europe) and Bert Weckhuysen (Utrecht University, SUNERGY coordinator). Speakers from the European Commission then introduced three funding mechanisms that could be of interest to the audience:

• Horizon Europe: http://ec.europa.eu/horizon-europe, which was introduced by Lucia Fernandez Macia (European Health and Digital Executive Agency)

• EIC Pathfinder, Transition and Accelerator: http://ec.europa.eu/research/eic, which were introduced by Francesco Matteucci and Marco Antonio Pantaleo (EIC Greentech Programme Managers)

• Innovation Fund: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/innovation-fund_en, which was introduced by Maria Velkova (DG CLIMA)

The second part of the brokerage event started with a presentation prepared by Frédéric Chandezon (CEA, SUNERGY deputy coordinator) and presented by Gabriele Centi (University of Messina, SUNERGY executive board member) on selected topics in the upcoming Horizon Europe Work Programme that relate to CCU and fossil-free fuels and chemicals. In total 35 calls (20 RIAs, 21 IAs and 4 CSAs) have been identified with a total budget of more than €900 million (for more information on all calls, please consult the booklet prepared by CO2 Value Europe and SUNERGY). Next, six pitches were given by Silvia Gross (University of Padova), Michael Gleeson (DIFFER), José Ramón Galán-Mascarós (ICIQ), Eduard Borràs Camps (LEITAT), Armelle Domas (CEA) and Jennifer Shaw Taberlet (AXELERA) to inspire the audience and to kickstart the brokerage part of the event. 

For the third part of the brokerage event participants could schedule bilateral meetings based on each other’s profile, requests and value offers. In total, 275 bilateral meetings were scheduled to network with colleagues from around Europe, discuss project ideas and exchange latest insights. In addition, 50 people joined the two round-table discussions organized by SUNERGY on the Horizon Europe topics “Development of more energy efficient electrically heated catalytic reactors” and “Hybrid catalytic conversion of renewable energy to carbon-neutral fuels”.

The event was concluded by Max Fleischer (Siemens Energy, chair SUNERGY industry board) and Anastasios Perimenis (Secretary General CO2 Value Europe and event moderator).

In the frame of the conference Nanoinnovation 2021 (Rome, 2021-2024), a workshop entitled “The energy hubs and districts in Italy: a showcase for nanotech” was co-organized by Gabriele Centi (University of Messina and member of the SUNERGY executive board).

The workshop aimed at discussing the needs and gaps, especially in terms of nanotechnology solutions, materials, and technologies, for creating energy hubs and districts, and their role in implementing the energy transition as well as for decarbonizing the chemical industry. Frédéric Chandezon, deputy coordinator of SUNERGY, was one of the invited speakers and he presented the SUNERGY initiative, and its vision based on the outline of the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA). He also discussed how the views of SUNERGY fit with the concept of energy hubs and districts with technologies that can be applied with a decentralized and circular approach. Chandezon also discussed the role of nanotechnology as a key enabler to develop and implement the SUNERGY technologies.

Several other speakers from academia, industry, and from consulting companies presented their views and strategies with some examples from energy hubs and districts.

The virtual kick-off meeting of the Industrial Board took place last 31 of August 2020. The Industrial Board is one of the key organisational bodies of the SUNERGY initiative, it comprises representatives from companies and industrial associations all over Europe and from different sectors. Currently, the board is composed by ten members: 

• Maximilian Fleischer (Chair, Chief Expert Energy, Siemens Energy) 

• Christoph Gürtler (Head of Catalysis & Technology Incubation, Covestro) 

• Alex van der Made (Senior Principal Expert, Shell) 

• Anastasios Perimenis (CCU Officer, CO2 Value Europe) 

• Jan Mertens (Chief Scientific Officer R&D, Engie) 

• Marie Godard-Pithon (Performance and Investments Director, VICAT) 

• Philippe Jacques (Managing Director, EMIRI – Energy Materials Industrial Research Initiative) 

• Andreas Förster (Head of Department Research Management and Conferences, DECHEMA – Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology e.V.) 

• Poul Georg Moses (Director Exploratory R&D, Haldor Topsøe) 

• Eric De Coninck (General Manager Group CTO, Arcelor Mittal) 

All the members participated in the kick-off meeting, except Poul Georg Moses, who was subsituted by Søren Dahl (R&D director, Advanced Materials) and Philippe Jacques. In addition, Bert Weckhuysen (SUNERGY Coordinator) and Frédéric Chandezon (SUNERGY Deputy Coordinator) attended the meeting providing a status update of the initiative, aiming to provide a comprehensive coverage of solar fuels and chemicals across all the value chain. A unique goal, currently not fully envisaged by other actions within Europe. 

​The discussions were focused on the different challenges and interests from each member of the Industrial Board, going from energy carriers to production of green fuels and gases. The board members expressed their interest in participate in research and innovation projects, not only as an advisory body, but also having an active role through their R&D or other departments.  

​Industrial Board meetings will be regularly organised every six weeks, while joint meetings with the Executive Board are also foreseen, as well as participation in SUNERGY webinars.  

Opportunities for Sweden to contribute to the SUNERGY vision of fossil-free fuels and chemicals

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On 20 April at 14:00pm SUNERGY hosted the online event ‘Opportunities for Sweden to contribute to the SUNERGY vision of fossil-free fuels and chemicals’. In this online event participants from science, industry, government and civil society from around Sweden learnt more about SUNERGY and explored opportunities to contribute to the fossil-free future. Speakers included Philippe Schild and Thomas Schleker from the European Commission, Maximilian Fleischer from Siemens Energy, Lars Guldbrand from the Swedish Government Agency and Oleg Pajalic from Perstorp AB. 

​ If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us via contact@sunergy-initiative.eu

Materials and efficiency improvements towards competitive green technologies

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Continuing the series of SUNERGY Industrial Webinars, the second webinar took place on 9 March, 2021. Around 80 participants gathered together online to follow the presentations of our three invited speakers:

• Philippe Jacques (Managing Director, EMIRI, Member of the SUNERGY Industrial Board), 
• Eric Peeters (Global Director of Sustainability, Performance Materials and Coatings at Dow Europe),
• Poul Georg Moses (Director Exploratory R&D, Haldor Topsøe, Member of the SUNERGY Industrial Board)

The talks gave an overview about challenges and developments in advanced materials for clean energy and mobility technologies, the complex multitechnological route towards carbon-neutrality and how new processes and materials are needed for the development of radical improvements. 

​Our SUNERGY Programme Coordinator, Linda Veldhuizen, moderated the event, which inluded lots of interesting questions from a very interested audience. 

​If you missed it, you can still watch our experts presentations in our YouTube channel. 

Strengthening scientific and technological developments in Poland

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The workshop was hosted on March 2nd, 2021. Over 55 participants joined the online SUNERGY workshop that focused on the Polish contribution to fossil-free fuels and chemicals, and on opportunities that are on the horizon. 

The event, moderated by Linda Veldhuizen (SUNERGY Programme Coordinator) started with a brief introduction of the SUNERGY initiative by Dr. Joanna Kargul, University of Warsaw, member of the SUNERGY Executive Board. 

​Then, the Poland National Contact, Dr. Jarosław Piekarski from the NationalCentre for Researchand Development, introduced the new Horizon Europe R&D&i framework to attendees, focusing on Pillar 2, Cluster 4 (Digital, Industry and Space) and highlighting opportunities aligned with SUNERGY goals.

The third speaker of the session was Mr. Maciej Kiełmiński, National Contact Point from the Polish Ministry of Education and Science, who gave an interesting overview of future topics of interest within the Pillar 2, Cluster 5: Climate, Energy and Mobility.  In addition, he also introduced the main points of the recently approved New Energy Policy of Poland and its contribution towards a fossil free future. 

​In the last part of the workshop participants were invited to share projects and initiatives that contribute to fossil-free fuels and chemicals.

This workshop was the second in a series of events that will be organised across Europe. Thank you to all participants and the invited speakers for making it possible. Stay tuned for next announcements!!

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Now you can watch registrations of the Workshop’s presentations in our YouTube channel