CIC energiGUNE and Tekniker founding members of the Flow Batteries Europe association
13-05-2021
CIC energiGUNE
The goal of this association, officially formalized this past 28th of April, is to promote redox flow industry in order to develop an efficient value chain that will contribute to keeping the climatic agreements and decarbonization of the EU.
CIC energiGUNE, the Basque research center of reference in battery storage, thermal energy solutions, and hydrogen, and Tekniker, technological center specialized in technologies of Advanced Manufacturing, Surface Engineering, Product Engineering and ICTs -both members of the Basque Research & Technology Alliance-BRTA, have participated in the creation of the association Flow Batteries Europe. The association constituted by 16 European entities will work to “accelerate the decarbonization in Europe increasing the deployment of flexible energy storage solutions through redox flow batteries”.
Flow Batteries Europe has the threefold objective of generating opportunities to develop the technologies of flow batteries and their value chain, promoting the development of the technology in the European funding programs and contributing to creating business opportunities. The founding assembly, celebrated in the 28th of April, elected the Executive Committee, formed by 9 agents, among others, CIC energiGUNE which will be represented by Raquel Ferret, Business Development manager and the positions of a president (Volterion, Kees van de Kerk), vice-presidents (Alexander Schönfeldt, CellCube; Tobias Janoschka, Jena Batteries and Paul Vollant, Largo Resources) and a treasurer (Guillaume Chazalet, Kemiwatt).
“Europe needs to quickly position itself in the field of flow batteries, because Asia and North America have a head-start on R&D as well as on commercial activity”, has expressed Raquel Ferret, Business Development manager from CIC energiGUNE. “The launch of this alliance will allow us to take advantage of opportunities and outline an efficient value chain at a European level”.
Along the same lines, Unai Eletxigerra, researcher at Tekniker, has agreed on pointing out the importance of this initiative and has highlighted the presence of two members of the BRTA in the founding group. “It is a great opportunity to take a lead position in respect to this technology”, he has assured.
Flow Batteries Europe is born with two main goals. On the one hand, promoting the benefits of the technologies of the flow batteries and supporting the European supply chain; and on the other hand, accelerating the development and deployment of the value chain of the flow batteries and expanding the technology through the legislation, funding and energy storage projects of the EU.
Likewise, this nonprofit international association aspires to make advances in the decarbonization of Europe and the world through the deployment of energy storage solutions based on the technology of flow batteries and their qualities of efficiency and security.
At this time, Flow Batteries Europe is configured by 5 research centers (CIC energiGUNE, Tekniker, CENELEST, University of Padua, ZHAW), 5 industrial companies (CellCube, InEnergy, Largo Clean Energy, Voith, W.L. Gore and associates), 5 start-ups (JenaBatteries, KEMIWATT, Pinflow Energy Storage, Vanevo, Volterion) and one association (Vanitec). Nevertheless, from the organization they have expressed their desire to make a call to all the European industrial and institutional organizations interested in actively promoting the technologies of flow batteries to join Flow Batteries Europe, within the framework of their commitment to reach Europe’s climatic objectives and decarbonization.