The STORM consortium gathered in Pafos, Cyprus, for its second Steering Committee Meeting, hosted at AUB Mediterraneo, bringing together project partners from across the Mediterranean to review progress, align upcoming actions, and strengthen collaboration as the project moves from planning toward implementation.
The meeting offered an important opportunity for the wider STORM team to come together in person, deepen coordination across countries, and exchange technical and communication updates linked to the project’s next stages. For a transnational project working across different Mediterranean contexts, this direct collaboration is essential to ensure that project activities remain aligned, knowledge is shared effectively, and pilot actions respond to the specific needs and conditions of each pilot setting.
Over the course of two days, partners discussed progress across STORM’s main areas of work, including the design of pilot actions, the development of the Mediterranean Design Toolkit, the upcoming Digital Platform, stakeholder engagement, and communication activities. The discussions helped partners align on shared priorities, clarify next steps, and reinforce the joint approach needed to advance Seasonal Thermal Energy Storage solutions across the region.
STORM is testing innovative Seasonal Thermal Energy Storage technologies through three full-scale pilots in Beirut, Ajloun and Palermo, and one demonstration in Barcelona, with the aim of improving building energy efficiency and reducing reliance on fuel-based heating and cooling. These actions will contribute to generating practical knowledge, technical evidence, and policy-relevant insights that can support wider uptake of sustainable heating and cooling models in Mediterranean buildings.
The Cyprus meeting also created space for partners to reflect on how each pilot contributes to the project’s broader vision. From borehole thermal energy storage to tank-based systems and renewable cooling solutions, the pilot actions will help assess how different technologies can respond to diverse climatic, geological, and building conditions across the Mediterranean.
Beyond technical coordination, the Steering Committee Meeting highlighted the value of Mediterranean cooperation. By bringing together partners from Lebanon, Jordan, Italy, Spain, and Cyprus, STORM continues to build a shared knowledge base around energy efficiency and seasonal thermal storage. This collaborative approach is central to the project’s ambition to support practical, replicable, and long-term solutions for the region’s energy transition.
The meeting was held back-to-back with STORM’s first Technical Summit, also hosted in Pafos, which provided an opportunity to introduce the project’s technologies, pilot activities, and expected impact to a wider community of stakeholders in Cyprus. Together, both events marked an important moment for the consortium to connect internal planning with external engagement, ensuring that STORM’s work continues to be shaped through dialogue, cooperation, and shared learning.
The project is led by the American University of Beirut (Lebanon), in partnership with Lebanese Center for Energy Conservation (Lebanon), Royal Scientific Society (Jordan), American University of Beirut – Mediterraneo (Cyprus), University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli (Italy), University of Palermo (Italy), and Knowledge Innovation Market Foundation BCN (Spain).
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