Services

The Semi-Virtual Energy Integration Laboratory (SEILAB) provides advanced expertise to assess the development and integration of renewable energy solutions and innovative thermal and electrical equipment that are designed to improve energy efficiency in buildings and energy systems. 

SEILAB offers short term feedback-improvement cycles for equipment development, fast determination of Seasonal Performance Factor (SPF), testing/optimising innovative control devices and regulation strategies, evaluation and testing of hybrid energy systems, testing under extreme operating and climate test conditions.  

SEILAB offers the following services focused on the testing and emulation of components, such as:

• Micro-Combined Heat Power (m-CHP)
• Fuel cells CHP, ORC and gas boilers
• Photovoltaic and solar thermal collector
• Biomass energy production
• Heat pumps and chillers

The Energy Smart Lab is an experimental and testing platform for technology development and testing in a flexible environment. It can develop and test prototypes in the fields of smart grids and micro-grids, renewable energy sources and electric mobility integration and control, energy storage applications and energy management conceived . 

The Energy Smart Lab offers the following services:

• Grid code validation
• Pre-certification testing and proof of concept development and experimental testing 
• Grid integration testing for generation/storage/load units, immunity to grid disturbances validation, assessment of electrical grid quality (current harmonics and flicker) 
• Endurance and performances tests for power systems and grid components

The Materials for Energy Labs are fully equipped laboratories that produce and characterize a large variety of materials and devices for energy applications, including photovoltaics, energy storage and harvesting, synthetic fuels, hydrogen and fuel cells. 

The common services offered by these labs are the following: 

• Structural analysis including thermo-electrical characterization, XRD, AFM, Raman and SEM
• Chemical characterization of materials services including elemental analysis, physisorption and chemisorption, chromatography and TGA
• Analysis and measurement of different semiconducting devices and unique process monitoring setup developed in-house 
• Synthesis of nanomaterials and surface functionalization

The specific services of each of the Materials for Energy Labs are the following:

Energy Storage, Harvesting and Catalysis lab services:

• Battery fabrication, assembly and testing 
• Electrochemical testing 
• Thermo-, photo- and plasma-catalytic reactors
• Heterogeneous catalyst characterization 
• Electrode/catalyst fabrication and thin film deposition 
• Reactor modelling (CFD)

Solar Energy Materials and Systems lab services:

• Synthesis of photovoltaic materials 
• Thin film processing 
• Solar cell prototyping and integration
• Advanced characterization 
• Industrial process monitoring workshop 

Functional Nanomaterials lab Services:

• Nanomaterials synthesis
• Photo-, electro- catalytic properties analysis
• Thermoelectric characterization

Nanoionics and Fuel Cells lab Services:

• Nanostructures and thin films fabrication and characterisation
• Advanced materials fabrication and characterisation
• Electrochemical measurements and performance of devices (from micro- to stack-scale testing)

This laboratory is a common infrastructure that brings together the knowledge and capacity of the IT Security Unit from EURECAT with the Power Systems group at IREC. The goal is to create a laboratory that allows to design, validate and test cyberattacks and protection informatic tools in the electrical system. This laboratory and the linked collaborations will create a unique infrastructure that allows to maximize the user cases and the services that can be offered.