The Clúster de l'Energia Eficient de Catalunya and EIT InnoEnergy organized this morning at Espai Catalonia Clústers a conference in breakfast format to discuss the company's investment model and the financing opportunities it has in Europe for new innovative projects in the field of cleantech. The day, which was attended by a dozen professionals from the energy sector, also had a space for the presentation of success stories achieved by the company alongside members of the cluster.

The session began with a brief introduction by the company's senior advisor and previous CTO of Renewable Energies, Antoni Martínez, who spoke about the objectives of the session, which focus on generating synergies with cluster members to promote new projects and investments.

EIT Innoenergy has been named this 2023 as one of the top 10 active investment companies in deeptech by Sifted, and is globally recognized as the most active investor in sustainable energy, with an ecosystem of more than 1200 partners and 29 shareholders.

Then, it was the turn of Mikel Lasa, CEO EIT InnoEnergy Iberia, who spoke about the company's business model and its mission. In Lasa's words, the aim has always been to "bring innovation closer to the market". "The core business is to identify innovative opportunities, accelerate them, make them grow by reducing the risk and introduce them to the market", he said. The CEO of EIT InnoEnergy Iberia also wanted to refer to the latest investment round of 140 MEUR raised by the company last week, which will allow them "much bigger projects" at the hands of new shareholders with a more industrial profile , such as Volkswagen or Renault.

Shortly after, Lasa went on to present the 7 thematic areas within sustainable energy that mark the company's areas of action. These are energy storage, sustainable buildings and cities, renewable energy, energy for transport and mobility, smart electricity grid, energy efficiency and energy for the circular economy. He also pointed out the 3 European organizations that participate to provide structure to industrial value chains: the European Battery Alliance (EBA), the European Green Hydrogen Acceleration Center (EGHAC) and the European Solar Industry Alliance (ESIA ).

The representatives of EIT Innoenergy have also presented some successful projects following the thread of their participation in these European organizations, such as the case of X1 Wind Disrupting offshore, an innovative solution in the field of marine wind energy; the mining project in Cáceres around lithium; or the drive to the Fertighy company to reduce emissions in fertilisers.

In their interventions, the representatives of EIT InnoEnergy also wanted to make clear the company's commitment to help reduce Europe's strategic dependence on supply chains for the production of new technologies, especially from the Asian continent. Lasa gave as an example the role of the entity and that of ESIA to re-create a competitive photovoltaic sector industry and recover the ground lost to other foreign powers.