IKERLAN and Capital Energy will promote digitisation and sustainability in the energy sector

Through a framework agreement that seeks to bring together the knowledge, resources and capabilities of both entities, with the aim of accelerating the adoption of digital technologies and promoting the integration of renewable energy sources to build a more sustainable, efficient and resilient energy future.

IKERLAN, a leading Basque technology centre in the transfer of knowledge and the contribution of competitive value to companies, and Capital Energy, a Spanish company founded more than two decades ago and whose vision is to be a leading platform for innovative businesses and assets in strategic sectors based on a 100% renewable integrated electricity utility model, have signed a collaboration framework agreement whose main objective is to promote digitalisation and sustainability in the energy sector and develop joint innovative solutions for the current challenges it faces.

IKERLAN’s CEO, Ion Etxeberria Otadui, and Víctor Gimeno Granda, General Manager of Digitalisation and Sustainability at Capital Energy, have sealed this collaboration agreement at the technology centre’s headquarters in Arrasate-Mondragón. The agreement is part of the firm commitment of both entities to the search for innovative and collaborative solutions to the challenges that the energy sector presents today, including growing energy demand, limited resources and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This framework agreement seeks to bring together the knowledge, resources and capabilities of Capital Energy and IKERLAN, with the aim of accelerating the adoption of digital technologies and promoting the integration of renewable energy sources to build a more sustainable, efficient and resilient energy future.

The alliance also responds to a shared vision that considers digitalisation, which has revolutionised the way we interact and manage resources, and sustainability, which has become a global priority given the need to combat climate change, as two fundamental elements to radically transform the energy sector, which must be cleaner and more efficient.

For Víctor Gimeno Granda, “reaching this agreement with such a prestigious entity as IKERLAN represents a new milestone for our company on the road to excellence in tackling, hand in hand with recognised and leading technological institutions, the best solutions to the challenges posed by the ecological and fair energy transition, which is what Capital Energy is promoting within the framework of the common and global project to decarbonise the economy”.

Following the signing of the agreement, Ion Etxeberria Otadui said that “we are proud to strengthen our relationship with a benchmark company, such as Capital Energy, in the field of renewable energies. The collaboration goes beyond technology, as it responds to a joint vision that drives us towards a more sustainable social model”.

This collaboration framework agreement reinforces the existing good relations between IKERLAN and Capital Energy, who were already working together on ALICE and IA4BAT , two projects related to the development of multi-technology solutions based on the combination of data analysis and artificial intelligence to optimise renewable energy storage.

Capital Energy, committed to the Basque Country

This agreement with IKERLAN is also part of Capital Energy’s philosophy of exerting an economic and social pull effect in all those territories in which it develops its 100% sustainable project. In this regard, the company is already processing, through seven companies based and taxed in the Basque Country, seven wind farms with a combined capacity of more than 138 megawatts (MW).

Their start-up would not only involve an overall investment of close to 160 million euros, but would also mean the creation of more than 530 direct jobs in rural areas, a contribution to GDP of 42 million euros and a tax contribution of more than 5 million euros.

In addition, the energy group would generate significant environmental value, as this renewable capacity could produce approximately 405 gigawatt hours (GWh) of clean electricity per year, equivalent to the consumption of more than 152,000 Basque households, and would prevent the emission of more than 150,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

IKERLAN, a benchmark technology partner for companies in the wind energy sector

The IKERLAN technology centre, for its part, accompanies companies in the wind energy sector in their process of technological evolution and has an important track record in collaboration with benchmark companies in the sector, thanks to its capacity to integrate different technologies, such as structural reliability in the design of components and structures, control algorithms, the design of electrical systems and control and supervision systems, monitoring and validation technologies or digitalisation solutions aimed at servitisation. It is also a member of the Basque Energy Cluster.