18 October 2017
Under the slogan “Electrical networks: Energy digitalisation and storage” they will share their knowledge of SmartGrids from the current perspective, progress and challenges in the sector.
Bilbao’s Euskalduna Congress Centre will host this biyearly two-day event organised by the two institutions on electrical networks. The following topics will be discussed: strategic aspects, technology implications, energy storage, implications for the electrical distribution business, the role of consumers and new business models.
Luis Pedrosa, Manager of Energy and the Environment at TECNALIA Research & Innovation; Julio Castro, member of the Board of Trustees, Orkestra University Chair in Energy; and Aitor Oregi, Director of Energy, Mines and Industrial Administration, Basque Government, spoke at today’s opening session.
The three speakers agreed that inter-firm collaboration in the Basque industrial fabric must be boosted to promote a competitive offer and position it as a benchmark in the international electrical distribution market. As they pointed out, the Basque Country has the necessary capacity to innovate and apply aspects to improve the energy digitalisation and storage process. Many Basque firms already form part of the working group promoted by the Basque Energy Cluster "SmartGrids Basque Country". Furthermore, energy is one of the strategic options for smart specialisation (RIS3) in the Basque Country.
Luis Pedrosa also underscored the importance of working on regulations that would accommodate new business models. Along these lines, Julio Castro emphasised the need to work on technology-based business models. According to Castro, “the network contributes more factors than energy distribution itself,-it means availability, connectivity...-. It is important to modernise the system so that it can contribute to decarbonisation, an area which it is also impacting at the present”. Lastly, Aitor Oregi concluded his talk by clearly stating: "development of SmartGrids and energy storage mechanisms are a key option for the Basque Government, and is also envisaged in the EnergiBasque strategy".
The conferences were sponsored by ABB, Arteche, Ingeteam, Ormazabal, Schneider Electric, Siemens and ZIV, and with the support of the Basque Government Department of Education.
Follow this event on Twitter with the hashtag: #jieec2017
