On 12 and 13 March 2024, RISEnergy (Research Infrastructure Services for Renewable Energy) held its official kick-off meeting at the Representation of the State of Baden-Württemberg in Brussels.
Starting on 1 March 2024, and set to run until 31 August 2028, this project, led by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and counting on the participation of the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) and several of its member organisations, aims to interconnect and push forward renewable energy technologies.
“RISEnergy will create a European ecosystem covering all areas of renewable energy technologies,” says Dr Olga Sumińska-Ebersoldt, co-coordinator of RISEnergy and researcher at the Helmholtz Institute Ulm (HIU) that was established by KIT and Ulm University. “We want to push the development of promising technologies from the laboratory level to industrial maturity.”
Notably, the two-day launch event brought together more than 140 online and on-site participants in Brussels.
The first day offered an overview of the project, followed by discussions on the most urgent challenges faced by the eight renewable energy technologies covered by RISEnergy (Photovoltaics (PV), Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)/Solar Thermal Electricity (STE), Hydrogen, Biofuels, Wind Energy, Ocean Energy, Integrated Grids and Energy Storage) and the two cross-cutting areas (Materials Research and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)), as well as presentations on the broad research infrastructure portfolio of the project.
On the second day, participants had the opportunity to exchange with the European Commission about the main expectations of the project. The RISEnergy work package (WP) leaders then outlined the actions to be carried out within the following different work streams (work packages):
• WP1: Building an energy R&I ecosystem
• WP2: Transnational and Virtual access to world-class research infrastructures
• WP3: Cross-cutting and renewable energy sources (RES) services to support technologies, systems & policymakers
• WP4: Pro-active innovation management
• WP5: Project management, outreach & engagement To discover more information about RISEnergy and its kick-off meeting, explore the meeting’s recordings and presentations here