Last week, from 25 to 27 September, Trento hosted the AEIT2024 International Annual Conference and the Center for Sustainable Energy of FBK couldn't miss the opportunity to participate!

Marcin Buchajczyk - researcher of the BET Unit - presneted the paper "Techno-Economic Analysis and Sizing of RFB and Supercapacitor-Based HESS for an EV Charging Station" written with the colleagues Saman Korjani, Mattia Durante, Edoardo Gino Macchi.

The researcher Silvia Ricciuti presented the paper "Emerging security and legal challenges within renewable energy communities: key prevention and defence strategies". 

The paper sees the involvement of the Cybersicurity center of FBK and focuses on how the growth of renewable energy communities leads to incredible opportunities for sustainable development and energy independence. However, with these advancements come complex security and legal challenges that need to be addressed. 

Silvia outlined three main focuses explored in the paper:

• The cybersecurity risks tied to decentralized energy sharing

• Legal frameworks needed to safeguard community privacy and data

• Strategies for preventing threats and building robust defence mechanisms.

AEIT2024 explored digitalisation and AI’s profound impact on energy systems, from optimising renewable energy integration or managing the flexibility of distributed energy resources and multi-vector energy systems to enhancing energy system adequacy, security and resiliency. 

More information on the conference: https://convegni.aeit.it/ and final programme: https://convegni.aeit.it/aeit2024/documenti/aeit2024finalprogr.pdf 

In these days the third edition of the Big Science Business Forum is taking place in Trieste. The event is a business oriented congress, focused on high technology and innovation with the aim to be the main meeting point between Research Infrastructures and industry in Europe.

Our Director Luigi Crema has been invited as speaker in the roundtable entitled Hydrogen and Big Science: Innovation, Challenges and Future. An Italian-European Perspective.

This specific event was organised by Area Science Park and Ceric-Eric. The panel was dedicated to the entire hydrogen production chain: from scientific research to industry to Italian and European institutions. 

The speakers outlined the main innovations in scientific research and industrial applications, discussed policies under development and addressed challenges concerning the hydrogen supply chain.

More information on the website: https://www.bsbf2024.org/ 

“The role of renewable hydrogen in the energy transition has been recognized at European level, with the publication of the European hydrogen strategy, and also at Italian level, where the guidelines for the national hydrogen strategy have been published and where with the National Resilience Plan has allocated more than 3 billion euros to the development of projects in the sector" reports Elena Crespi, researcher at the Sustainable Energy Center of the Bruno Kessler Foundation, in her speech this afternoon at the Wired Next Fest in Rovereto.

“When we talk about hydrogen,” explained the FBK researcher, “we need to distinguish between hydrogen produced from fossil fuels with the emission of carbon dioxide, and renewable hydrogen produced without polluting emissions. Renewable hydrogen can be used for clean electricity storage and converted back into electricity when demand is greatest. In this way, hydrogen can allow greater penetration of renewables into the electricity grid. Furthermore, hydrogen can be used for the decarbonisation of sectors defined as "Hard to abate", difficult to decarbonise, i.e. those sectors in which electrification is not a viable option, as in the case of the steel industries, cement factories, chemicals. Finally, it can contribute to the decarbonisation of the transport sector, where it can be used as a fuel for both road transport and rail and water transport".

During the debate at Palazzo del Ben in connection with Francesco Sciortino, CEO and co-founder of the startup Proxima Fusion, moderated by the journalist Gialuca Dotti, Elena Crespi also spoke about the scientific and technological frontiers on which she is working and her research activities at the Bruno Kessler Foundation: “From a research point of view, we are active on the entire hydrogen value chain. On the one hand, the focus is on the optimization of electrolysers. The research is focused, for example, on the use of new, less expensive and better performing materials, but also on better integration with renewables and better management of these systems. At the same time, we are focusing on new hydrogen storage systems, which can complement the more traditional storage of hydrogen under pressure at 200 bar, also facilitating its transport. Finally, the research is also dealing with fuel cells, i.e. systems for converting hydrogen into electricity, which can be used both for stationary purposes and in the transport sector. At FBK, in the Sustainable Energy center, we follow various projects funded by the European Union and research projects to support industries. I'm mainly dealing with electrolysis. I am following experimental activities in which we test different electrolysis cells, to select the components with the best performance. Among the European projects I followed the SWITCH project, which has the aim of optimizing the functioning of a particular reversible system, capable of producing hydrogen both from water and from biogas, at a lower cost".

Read the article in Italian: https://magazine.fbk.eu/it/news/idrogeno-rinnovabile/ 

Partners of the North Adriatic Hydrogen Valley (NAHV) have gathered in Rijeka at the annual  Consortium meeting to review the implementation of key projects, assess risks along the way and focus on integration into their respective social and industrial environments.

Among them there was also the Center for Sustainable Energy of FBK: Marco Tomasi, Sasan Jorjani and Emanuele Martinelli had the opportunity to meet the Partners in person and discuss with the industrial ones about the test-beds development and the replication of the hydrogen valley. 

The North Adriatic Hydrogen Valley (NAHV) project’s high-level objective is the creation of a hydrogen-based economic, social and industrial ecosystem based on the capacity of the quadruple helix actors. Green hydrogen is essential to decarbonize hard-to-abate, distribution and end user sectors, as it can potentially be produced with no CO2 emission. 

FBK leads the project activities related to Exploitation and Replication and is involved in the establishment of a safety plan of the hydrogen valley, the creation of a digital twin to replicate the entire valley, study of a new market scheme for transnational hydrogen trading. 

Marco Tomasi presented the general situation of the progress of WP11, in particular in relation to the activities that have already started and the steps to be taken in the next months. 

Read the entire press release at this link

More information at: https://www.nahv.eu/announcing-nahv-consortium-meeting/ 

Sustainability and batteries: how can they be sustainable and what role do they play in the energy transition path?

Luigi Crema and Edoardo Gino Macchi, respectively Director and Head of Unit at the Centre for Sustainable Energy, talked about it during an episode of Trentino TV dedicated to the theme of sustainability.

"As Fondazione Bruno Kessler, we work on initiatives that take care of making the use of batteries more sustainable from the moment they are designed and engineered to the end of their life," explained Luigi Crema, while Edoardo Gino Macchi talked about the relevance of the issue of batteries in the energy transition path and some of the projects active at the Center.

Watch the episode of Trentino TV (in Italian): https://www.trentinotv.it/video-on-demand/progettiamo-il-futuro---sostenibilita_16-09-2024

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Sostenibilità e Batterie: come possono essere sostenibili e che ruolo hanno nel percorso di transizione energetica?

Luigi Crema e Edoardo Gino Macchi, rispettivamente direttore e responsabile di unità presso il centro Energie Sostenibili di FBK, ne hanno parlato durante una puntata di Trentino TV dedicata al tema della sostenibilità.

"Come Fondazione Bruno Kessler lavoriamo su iniziative che si prendono cura di rendere più sostenibile l’uso delle batterie da quando vengono disegnate e progettate fino al fine vita” ha spiegato Luigi Crema, mentre Edoardo Gino Macchi ha raccontato la rilevanza del tema delle batterie nel percorso di transizione energetica e alcuni dei progetti attivi presso il centro Energie Sostenibili di FBK.

Guarda la puntata di Trentino TV:  https://www.trentinotv.it/video-on-demand/progettiamo-il-futuro---sostenibilita_16-09-2024

On September 16, Radio 24 launched two different episodes with an interview to Luigi Crema and Matteo Testi, respectively the Director of the Center SE and the Head of HyRES Unit.

In the programme Autotrasporti, Luigi Crema spoke with Andrea Ferro about articulated lorries and trucks  powered by hydrogen.  "The hydrogen topic is closely linked to the entire supply chain of the sector. First of all it is necessary that hydrogen is obtained in a sustainable way, therefore hydrogen produced from renewable sources or with the capture of CO2, and then there is the issue, still very critical, of refueling infrastructures, today in Italy there is only one, in Bolzano”, reports Luigi Crema. 

On the same day but in the programme Smart Cities, Matteo Testi was interviewed by Maurizio Melis on the recent award Hydrogen TCP Award of Excellence 2024, won by the SWITCH Project.
Coordinated by the Bruno Kessler Foundation, the project led to the development of a particular type of fuel cell capable of operating in two distinct modes: as an electrolyser, producing hydrogen from water, and as a fuel cell, producing heat, electricity and hydrogen starting from hydrocarbons such as methane, preferably organic, of course. By doing so, it is possible to guarantee those who adopt this technology a supply of hydrogen with a low CO2 content, regardless of the discontinuity of sources such as the sun and the wind. 

The episodes are in Italian. 

Listen to Matteo Testi's interview: https://www.radio24.ilsole24ore.com/programmi/smart-city/puntata/trasmissione-16-settembre-2024-6500-2377088007194755

Listen to Luigi Crema's interview: https://www.radio24.ilsole24ore.com/programmi/autotrasporti/puntata/trasmissione-16-settembre-2024-5800-2377088007266539 

On September 12th, our researchers Gloria Gottardi and ChandraKanth Reddy Chandraiahgari took part in the annual assembly of the NEST project (Spoke 9) held in Rome, at the CNR headquarters. The NEST project - Network 4 Energy Sustainable Transition, is funded by the European Union under the NextGenerationEU program and at the Italian level by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).

The NEST project has the ambitious goal of connecting the main university laboratories and research groups and the main national research institutions, building a competent Italian leadership, strongly integrated with the territory and businesses, capable of supporting future development towards sustainable and decarbonized energy production and distribution.

The project is organized in 9 spokes. FBK, is involved in 2 spokes (spoke 4 and spoke 9).

The meeting was aimed in particular at the partners involved in spoke 9 - Energy-Sustainable Advanced Materials, dedicated to developing advanced materials and technologies capable of improving the efficiency of materials and devices, reducing their carbon footprint and offering environmental and economic benefits in applications in the energy sector.  

Gloria Gottardi is the scientific manager of Spoke 9 and leads the Work Package related to characterisation. FBK conducts multiple research activities, both in the development of nanocatalysts for hydrogen production and in analytical support to project partners through chemical-physical characterization techniques of materials. 

Read more on: https://fondazionenest.it/