Research Domains
Concentrated Solar Power
Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is a technology that produces electricity by concentrating sunlight onto a small area. A major advantage of the CSP plants is that they generate power reducing carbon dioxide emissions, especially during grid peak demand. By this way, CSP can potentially displace the use of fossil fuel plants that emit the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Nowadays, large-scale research efforts are necessary to improve performances of CSP technology, in order to reduce technology development costs and foster a global market penetration, making this technology profitable and compatible as an alternative source of clean energy.
Hydrogen Technologies
Hydrogen technologies regard the production and use of hydrogen for different applications. In the energy domain, hydrogen is an ideal energy storage medium that could have an important role in preventing climate changed. In fact, some innovative hydrogen technologies are carbon neutral and could drive a possible future hydrogen economy, supporting the environment, the climate and the transition to a sustainable society.
Smart Buildings & Communities
A smart building is a new way to build and manage our homes in order to make them more efficient and sustainable, integrated with renewable energy sources locally available in a reliable and secure way. It is fundamental to address this sector improving our buildings in environmental and sustainability profiles. At the same time, it is important the promotion of new models of interaction and the creation of awareness in our communities regarding energy saving methodologies: working together with households, schools, companies, governments and no-profit organisations we could create smart communities able to educate each citizen to use less energy, reducing energy bills and contributing to improve the environment.