The Minister of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda of the Government of Catalonia, Teresa Jordà, has signed today a collaboration agreement with Gurb City Council, Vic City Council, Osona County Council and University of Vic – University Central de Catalunya in order to install the PRIMA Platform in Gurb (Osona), developed by the Catalonia Institute for Energy Reseacrh (IREC). PRIMA will be a platform for the integration of renewable and storage of energy. The Platform will allow the industrial testing and validation of technologies, products and services for energy storage and renewable energy in a real environment.
The agreement provides the transfer of a land of 12,500 m2 to locate the infrastructures by Gurb City Council and sets out the terms for its implementation. In addition, it also incorporates collaboration agreements in the energy scientific-technological fields – joint participation in R+D+i projects, consulting and transfer of knowledge, among others -, in training in the academic and professional fields – such as teaching opportunities between UVIC-UCC and IREC-, and in the dissemination to society. The Government of Catalonia, through the Institut Català d’Energia (ICAEN), has already allocated 3 million euros to finance the Platform.
The PRIMA Platform of IREC, will be a platform for testing and demonstration of energy technologies and new solutions and products in real environments in the pre-market phase. Industrial-scale pilot plants at PRIMA will be integrated, while various projects will be shared and validate between different agents within the sector. The technological areas of the pilot plants will be hydrogen systems; electrification and flexibility; renewable energy and storage; thermal energy; energy efficiency; sustainable mobility, and bioenergy.
The facility will have a dual orientation. On one hand, it will promote applied research and technological development and, on the other hand, to provide market-oriented services. The aim is to become the reference infrastructure for the integration of renewables and energy storage, and to stimulate collaboration with public institutions, universities, research centres, private companies, business groups and energy communities focusing on energy transition. There are already more than twenty institutions and companies associated with IREC that have expressed their interest in PRIMA Platform to develop new products and services.
The implementation of the PRIMA Platform in Osona reinforces the region’s commitment to get get closer to the energy transition, and will establish synergies with many of the initiatives already being developed, as well as harnessing its potential in areas such as bioenergy from the energy recovery of livestock waste. IREC’s presence in Osona will be completed, in the same area, with the installation of the experimental fields, which will be a wide open space serving the Institute’s already operational research lines.
The development of the PRIMA Platform is part of the transition to a cleaner, sustainable, fairer and more democratic energy model promoted by the Government of Catalonia. The Energy Prospective of Catalonia 2050 identifies the research-innovation and business development as two of the strategies that must be applied intensively in order to achieve, in 2050, a climate-neutral energy model based on renewable energies. In addition, it also contributes to the economic and social development of the region, aligned with the objectives defined by the Rural Agenda being defined by the Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda of the Government of Catalonia.
For more information about PRIMA Platform click here
Find the related press release here (in Catalan)
Check up the video release from PRIMA Platform in this link
PRIMA Platform event presentation pictures
