CIDETEC celebrates its first year as a CERVERA Centre of Excellence in three lines of research

The San Sebastián-based centre has three active projects making it strategic in improving the capacity of the national industrial fabric.

CIDETEC is working on three projects in the CERVERA Network, promoted by the CDTI, which recognises the excellence of the selected technology centres and promotes synergies between them to generate new capabilities that can be transferred to industry, creating high added value. ALMAGRID, ENERISLA and SURFERA are three projects that will add 100% renewable energies to the electricity grid, develop technology to address the energy transition and optimise products through surface engineering.

ALMAGRID, which accredits CIDETEC as a ‘Cervera Centre of Excellence’ in ‘Integration of advanced energy storage technologies for grid applications’, was created with the aim of developing solutions to meet the needs of the mass integration of renewable generation technologies into the electricity grid. The centres are working on new materials, sustainable components and optimised storage systems to provide strategic grid services to ensure the required level of flexibility for electricity distribution and transmission. They also identify niche applications for storage technologies that offer new business opportunities for the energy industry, integrators, battery and component manufacturers and waste managers, among others. Under the coordination of CIDETEC Energy Storage, Tekniker, ITE and Circe collaborate in the ALMAGRID Network, offering support to companies through technological services, training and internationalisation.

On the other hand, and with the common objective of providing tools that favour the energy transition, the ENERISLA project is working to implement isolated microgrids powered by renewable sources. The aim of this is to provide companies in the Spanish electricity market with both knowledge and new solutions to improve their competitiveness in the new energy landscape. The results of ENERISLA will contribute to the energy transition process, providing new techniques and solutions to maximise the use of renewable energies in areas with limited access to the grid, thanks to the central role of batteries. This project, in which, in addition to CIDETEC, Tecnalia, CTIC and Circe also participate as coordinators, accredits them as centres of excellence in the ‘Development of hybrid energy generation and storage systems with exclusive use of renewable technologies, applicable to products, infrastructures or buildings’.

Finally, the SURFERA project is creating a ‘Network of excellence in surface functionalisation technologies for applications in industrial sectors of high economic and social impact’. Through the development of breakthrough technologies to revolutionise the surfaces of materials at micro and nano scale, the aim is to achieve excellence in surface functionalisation technologies for sectors such as aeronautics and the automotive industry. Within the consortium, in which Tekniker, AIN and Idonial also participate, CIDETEC Surface Engineering is working on the development of new, more environmentally sustainable formulations that constitute a real, viable and quality alternative to current surface treatments. In addition, a digitalised system will be developed for the real-time control and management of different electrochemical surface treatment processes, which will be integrated into a novel demonstration plant, in which the consistency in the quality of the coatings and surface finishes that will be achieved is particularly noteworthy.

These projects, which started in early 2020, have a combined budget of more than €10 million and will be active until the end of 2022. Thus, CIDETEC reinforces its commitment as a benchmark company in the energy sector and in surface engineering applicable to multiple fields.