Feb 10 2011
IBERDROLA has invested Euro 130 million in R&D in 2010 with a 44% increase from the last year. This amount was invested in more than 150 projects for battling the new challenges encountered in the energy sector.
IBERDROLA has always been famous for its innovative practices mainly because of the focus on R&D and the strong internationalisation in the present and the initiation of clean energy projects. It has projects on electric mobility, clean generation technologies, renewable energies, energy storage systems and smart grids.
Wind form
In the year 2010, Iberdrola launched the IBERDROLA Green Mobility Plan for customers in Spain, which offers a comprehensive solution for the purchase of electric vehicles, finance options, installation of the charging point along with a complete renewable power supply. Similar projects have been undertaken by the company in the US and UK. In Spain, it has signed contracts with companies such as FCC for promotion of electric fleets and deployment of charging points and is also teaming up with public administration groups in Basque Country, Castile and Leon, Madrid or Murcia for promoting these electric cars. In the UK and the US it has established two projects via ScottishPower and the IBERDROLA U.S.A for developing the charging points and infrastructure, which are essential for electric vehicles.
The company has also spent some time and energy for improving operating conditions at the power facilities along with safety standards and in decreasing their impact on the environment. It has also developed initiatives connected to carbon capture such as the Cenit Vida project, which has been set up for researching new innovative techniques for capturing gas or the Sost-CO2, which is working on new ways to use the trapped CO2 on a large-scale basis. In the distribution segment, the company has been working on smart grids to enhance supply quality, decrease the number of exceptions and inspire customer participation in projects in Maine, Castellón and Glasgow.
In the energy storage sector, the company’s most significant contribution is in CAES (Compressed Air Energy Storage) in New York where a compressor is used for storing air inside a cavern during the non-peak periods and released during the peak load periods for generation of electricity. IBERDROLA has totally focussed all its efforts to develop new environmentally friendly technologies for generation of renewable energies especially concentrating on offshore wind farms. The company is participating in the Emerge Project through its renewable subsidiary and plans to install floating 5 MW wind farms deep under the sea.
IBERDROLA in collaboration with Vattenfall is to construct one of biggest off-shore wind farms in the world in UK called the East Anglia Array and this would be constructed on the North Sea. The work would commence in 2015 and its total installed power would be 7200 MW. IBERDROLA has also organized the Perseo Awards in 2010 for promoting research in the energy sector by offering support for pioneering activities that could meet the trials faced by the energy sector in the future. These awards were a part of a venture capital fund, the Perseo initiative, which invests in innovative technologies for generating renewable energy and decreasing the impact of the current production systems on the environment. With an annual budget of Euro 6 million, Perseo ensures that IBERDROLA would be involved in future technologies.