Final Report Summary - ETRERA (Empowering Tunisian Renewable Energy Research Activities)
Executive Summary:
The project “Empowering Tunisian Renewable Energy Research Activities” (ETRERA) was funded by European Community-FP7 under REGPOT-2009-2 Action, finalized to empower the research cooperation in innovation between the European and the Mediterranean countries.
ETRERA project was aimed at the creation of a research network on renewable energy sources (RES), hydrogen (H2) and fuel cell (FC) technologies involving as primary actor the Tunisian “Research and Technology Center of Energy” (CRTEn), and three European entities: 1) Institute for Advanced Energy Technologies “N. Giordano” of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ITAE); 2) Polytechnic School of Nantes University (Polytech Nantes), France; 3) Innova Business Innovation Centre (InnovaBIC), Italy. Starting from this nucleus the consortium has pointed to develop an Euro-Mediterranean network dedicated to RES, H2 and FC technologies. ETRERA started in January 2010 and ended in June 2013. It was mainly addressed to fuel cell technology, because up to 2010 there was not a laboratory dedicated to FC in Tunisia.
The three research centres possess complementary know how on renewable energy sources research and development, that allows to create an international network having integrated competences that cover all the cycle: from the electric energy generation by wind and sun light to the hydrogen and fuel cells applications for everyday utilities via the energy storage as hydrogen and the fuel cell development.
The specific project objectives were to:
1. enhance CRTEn expertise and know-how on fuel cell and hydrogen technologies and applications, due to the recently start up of this CRTEn research branch and to the increasing strategic relevance of hydrogen and fuel cell research activity for CRTEn development;
2. strengthen CRTEn young human resources and research capacities, so as to improve their knowledge on fuel cells and hydrogen technologies;
3. improve technological equipment related to fuel cell and hydrogen matters. CRTEn had already begun to work on fuel cell materials but both the fuel cell test station and the fuel cell prototype were a further step to improve its research activity performance;
4. boost the access into the international scientific communities, networks and platforms on fuel cell and hydrogen technologies and increase their partnerships with the most relevant research centres and industrial enterprises by improving their visibility at international level.
To reach these results the action plan considered the following activities:
1. Exchange of know-how - through two-way secondments of each research centre’s staff, in order to boost know-how exchange, thanks to a learning by doing process and four seminars, in order to train emerging young researchers, Ph.D. students and post-doctoral researchers.
2. Recruitment - to increase research capacities and the human potential of CRTEn, by involving into CRTEn’s research staff researchers having working or studying experience matured abroad.
3. Improvement of S&T research equipment of Tunisian CRTEn. CNR ITAE and Polytech’Nantes will help CRTEn in building up a Fuel Cell Test station, able to test research size stacks, and in starting an activity on Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells components and stack development, prototyping and testing.
4. Web Knowledge Platform – a Web Platform is used to underpin all the project activities and to meet the networking’s needs of the three research centres. This platform was able to create a virtual and sharing environment, in order to get a closer interaction among the project partners and project stakeholders, such as scientific community and industrial enterprises working on fuel cells.
5. Events organization. The Consortium organised events in order to enhance knowledge transfer from the three research centers towards international fuel cell and hydrogen community of researchers and industrial enterprises.
6. Dissemination has been carried out through a set of actions aimed at increasing the visibility of the three research entities and related activities by providing information on relevant activities and results of their projects.
Project Context and Objectives:
The availability of adequate energy provisions is a key factor for the economic development of any country, industrialised or emerging one. This drives an increasing world energy demand in front of limited traditional energy sources availability, and the necessity to limit the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Today, a large part of world countries have initiated policies aiming at the reduction of CO2 emissions and the introduction of renewable energies sources. These are intended to introduce a virtuous cycle that should lead to an increase of energy consumption efficiency and a reduction of the pollution emissions to meet the global issue of a “sustainable development”.
Due to the global importance of this issue, collaboration policies between countries play a fundamental aspect, especially to develop and spread knowledge and technologies related to efficient energy production and consumption, renewable energies sources exploitation, waste treatment and recycling. In fact, European energy policy aims at developing a European Area for Energy Research, in order to overcome the fragmentation of Energy research in Europe and to open itself to research institutions from third countries, encouraging cooperation and pooling together competences and resources in the domain of energy, biotechnologies, environment and materials. Moreover, on October 2008 the European Union and European Industry announce plans to make fuel cells and hydrogen one of Europe's leading new strategic energy technologies of the future. Fuel cells, as an efficient conversion technology, and hydrogen, as a clean energy carrier, have a great potential to help address energy challenges facing Europe.
Consequently, European Union policies strongly support research collaborations of European countries with neighbourhood countries. These efforts were enforced in 2004 as consequence of the European Union enlargement that opened new opportunities to deepen existing relations.
Among the Mediterranean neighbourhood countries, Tunisia established diplomatic relations with EU in 1976 and along the years signed with EU collaboration agreements covering different activity sectors, including transports, environment and energy. Tunisia has limited conventional energy resources (gas and petroleum) and its demand for energy, mainly electricity, is rising sharply due to its economic growth. This aspect is highlighted by the continuous increase of the energy balance deficit recorded since 2001, as results of an increasing demand and stagnating supply. To contrast this trend, in the 10th and 11th Economic Development Plan, ambitious objectives to enforce the policy on rational use of energy was stated, and Tunisian Government launched national projects aimed at improving the utilization of solar heat and photovoltaic, and increasing the industrial energy efficiency. The social disorder related to the so called “Arab Spring” in 2011 and the consequent changes in administration, slowed down the energy programs actuation, not the increase of energy demand.
In this contest, the research on energy technologies plays a fundamental role in supporting the energetic policies and is asked to transfer to local industries the related technological knowhow, also fro increasing job opportunities reducing social stresses. For this reason, Tunisia launched the so-called 'national system of innovation', planning twelve new science and technology parks by the year 2010. Six have actually being implemented. One of these, Borj-Cedria Science and Technology Park, the first one that has been implemented, host three research centres working in environmental sector: Research and Technology Centre of Energy (CRTEn), Water Resources and Technology Centre (CERTE) and Biotechnology Centre (CBBC). To boost their research activities these centres have looked for collaboration with foreign centres operating in the same research fields.
Empowering Tunisian Renewable Energy Research Activities (ETRERA) worked in this direction. ETRERA (http://www.etrera.eu) was funded under FP7-REGPOT-2009-2 action of the European Commission. The EU action was finalized to empower the research cooperation in innovation between the European countries and the Mediterranean countries. The ETRERA project was aimed at the creation of a research network on renewable energies involving as primary actors the Tunisian “Research and Technology Centre of Energy” (CRTEn), and three European entities: the Institute for Advanced Energy Technologies “N. Giordano” (CNR-ITAE) – Italy; the Polytechnic School of Nantes University (Polytech Nantes) – France; the Business Innovation Centre (InnovaBIC) - Italy.
The three research centres possessing complementary know how on renewable energy sources research and development. Actually the integration of the three institutions allows to create an international network having competences that cover all the cycle: from the electric energy generation by wind and sun light to the hydrogen and fuel cells applications for everyday utilities via the energy storage as hydrogen and the fuel cell development. InnovaBIC was claimed for supplying its experience in know how transfer and science communication, supporting and facilitating the research centres action.
The project has been based on the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Analysis of CRTEn. This has permitted to draw a Scientific & Technological state of the art of the centre. It has pointed out CRTEn main research activities and S&T needs in terms of know-how, expertise, technologies and missing equipment. Staring from this point, the overall goal of the ETRERA action plan was to enhance and empower Tunisian CRTEn and in particular its capacity to carry out research activity on fuel cell and hydrogen technologies in a competitive way. At the same time it underpinned a two-way knowledge exchange towards CNR ITAE and the UN-Polytech, in fact thanks to this partnership CRTEn was abled to exchange its know-how on systems for semiconductor and optoelectronics photovoltaic application to the two European research bodies. Hence the driving idea was the developing of the “green energy process” starting from the production of hydrogen thank to solar and wind energy, its storage and its utilization. Within this process CRTEn having strong expertise in the first step of the Photovoltaic cells (PV cells) process, by the project had the opportunity to gain know-how in the other part of the green energy process. In few words, the project started from the CRTEn expertise on PV cells for integrating this with CNR ITAE and UN-Polytech know-how on hydrogen (H2) production, hydrogen storage and its transformation in energy within the fuel cell stack
According to the SWOT analysis and the project approach, the specific project objectives have been to:
1. enhance CRTEn expertise and know-how on fuel cell and hydrogen technologies and applications, due to the recently start-up of this CRTEn research branch and to the increasing strategic relevance of hydrogen and fuel cell research activity for CRTEn development;
2. strengthen CRTEn young human resources and research capacities, so as to improve their knowledge on fuel cells and hydrogen technologies;
3. improve technological equipment related to fuel cell and hydrogen matters, actually CRTEn has already begun to work on fuel cell materials but both a fuel cell test station and a fuel cell prototype are needed to improve its research activity performance;
4. boost the access into the international scientific communities, networks and platforms on fuel cell and hydrogen technologies and increase their partnerships with the most relevant research centres and industrial enterprises by improving their visibility at international level.
To reach these objectives the project partners have been involved in coordinated activities to reinforce the research structure of CRTEn. A new research lab dedicated to research on polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) was built up at CRTEn. The recruitment of new researchers was carried out to increase the research capacities and the human potential of CRTEn. The experience of CNR-ITAE and Polytech Nantes on FC and hydrogen technologies, spanning from material preparation to the system integration, was shared by exchange of researchers, the organization of seminars and starting collaborative research activities on PEFCs.
Advantages coming from the project was not only for CRTEn and Tunisian research scientific community. The returns for the EU entities could be synthesised in the following points:
a) Start-up of new research collaboration by the realisation of a new network with potentialities for their quick enlargement;
b) Possibilities increasing their research and collaborative potentialities thanks to the exchange of researchers and students;
c) Increased international visibility thanks to the project activities and the divulgation of the project’s results.
To have these return the dissemination both of the project activities and project results was considered a very important aspect of the project. This conducted to a series of action aimed at increasing the visibility of the partners and of related research activities so as to obtain a wide dissemination of the project results to scientific community and European and Tunisian industries. The Innova BIC’s experience in communication was used for this purpose. Then since the first year of the project was prepared a communication plan including the following activities:
1. Set up of a public profile of the project – The realisation of the project logo, the web site and other awareness activities like informative leaflet, press release, information days and so on.
2. Participation to scientific conferences – These participations have been aimed at divulgating the research activities carried out by the partners, introducing the Tunisian researchers, especially the recruited ones, in the international research community, and giving visibility to the project.
3. Presentations of the project at national and international conferences - These participations have been aimed at the dissemination of information about the project activities and the results obtained.
4. The organisation of an international scientific conference linked to the project.
In addition to the visibility for the project and the partners, the real objectives of the dissemination activities was the set-up of an environment able to support the sustainability of the project results giving them a prospective for future developments. In particular the driving idea was the dream to create, starting from the ETRERA partnership, a research network, involving research centres and industries from all European and Mediterranean area countries and devoted to research on renewable energy sources, hydrogen and fuel cells technologies.
Project Results:
The project started on January 1st 2010, with a 36 month work plan. Along the way the project encountered some difficulties and it was able to overcome these. Among these, the so called “Arab spring” started in Tunisia between December 2010 and January 2011, and propagated to other Arab countries along 2011. Although Tunisia was able to solve the socio-political instability in few months by changing their leadership, this event and its consequences have been prolonged in time causing a series of difficulties that obliged the project to be prolonged of 6 months, up to June 2013. By increasing our efforts we were able to drive the project, without any stop, but despite some delay in the implementation of the activities necessary to face front the difficulties by proposing a new approach based on strong management and on sharing the main decisions.
In the following paragraph the main executive project aspects, results and foregrounds are resumed.
In view of performing the ETRERA activities, the Consortium developed at the beginning of the project an operational work plan in order to address and to carry out project activities. This work plan was updated every six month, in order to cope with the main hurdles met over the project time. To that end, project meetings were an important step to jointly define strategy, share partners’ experiences and to learn from each other. The goal was to define a common approach for undertaking the main project activities as well as to overcome obstacles and problems. In fact, the ETRERA project met several obstacles since its start-up, that have hampered the correct development of project activities as originally planned:
• The political instability of Tunisia resulted in the month of January 2011 with the revolution and the change of government type.
• Tunisian Bureaucratic and administrative rules: differences in administrative procedures between EU and Tunisia created some problems that are now solved. Harmonisation between usual EU standards and Tunisian ones was done by the definition of appropriate project internal protocols. This required additional management efforts for all the partners.
• Some limitations for travel abroad of Tunisian researchers: the necessity of visas and some other bureaucratic processes created difficulties to the planned Tunisian researchers’ movements to Europe. European countries in fact often require long procedures to release the entry visa. Now, the researchers involved in the project can request a special passport “red passport” in order to facilitate the mission’s travels.
• Tunisian reimbursement rules that can be considered as a limitation for the stay of Tunisian researcher abroad.
As a result, the CRTEn, the Tunisian partner of the project, has now changed its administrative status with a simplification of its procedures. In fact, the main problems that the ETRERA project met, were linked to divergence in terms of rules and administrative procedures between EU and Tunisia. Since January 2011 the CRTEn, also thanks to the ETRERA project, gained administrative autonomy. Moreover, despite some delays, Tunisian partners managed to acquire the needed equipment, to take part to the short-training abroad and to finalise the contracts to the recruited researchers. A flexible approach of the partnership was able to overcome the main hurdles by increasing the general efforts.
Notwithstanding several difficulties at play, the ETRERA consortium has performed the planned activities of the work plan, in particular, the capacity building ones, that was at the heart of the project.
The experience matured in the management activities could be considered the first foregrounds of the project The project coordinator, Gaetano Squadrito, was its first experience as coordinator of an international collaborative project. The same was for the CRTEn and Polytech Nantes scientific representatives that experienced the first management responsibility at international level. The matured experience has been really important both as formation experience both for the carrier development of Prof Chtourou, CRTEn, and Prof. Auvity, Polytech Nantes.
Prof. Radhouane Chtourou, also thank to the exposure gained via the ETRERA project was appointed as president of the Tunisian “National Recruitment Committee for Materials Science”, in a second moment he was also appointed, on behalf of the Tunisian Ministry of Research and Higher Education, as member of the PASRI project steering committee and currently he has been designated as member of the technical cabinet of the Tunisian Ministry of Research and Higher Education.
Prof. Bruno Auvity recently upgraded his position from associate professor to full professor, and polytech Nantes received funding from Loire Actlantic Region (France) for implementing the fuel cells laboratory.
At the end of the project activities we can state that all the planned objectives has been reached.
1) Thanks to an appropriate recruitment and Training of Tunisian researchers having study or work experience abroad, the human resources of CRTEn have been improved. Today, there is a new stable research group working of Fuel cell technologies at CRTEn, because some of the trained researchers and engineers were stabilized with a permanent contract, and other researcher and engineers of the centre jointed the group. Moreover, along the way, some trained researchers and engineers left the project for better work position, and this is an additional success.
The original program foreseen the recruitment of one experienced researcher, as team leader, and two young researchers. Thanks to a revision of the budget balance, this number was extended to 1 experienced and three young researchers. The selection of the researchers to be recruited, under temporary contract, has been carried out by two international calls. At the end of the recruitment process, CRTEn hired 4 researchers and one engineer, with one more associated professor recruited compared to the planned number of 3.
Hereinafter the list of recruited persons:
- Dr. Zyed BEJI
- Dr Ibtissem BEN ASSAKAR
- Dr. Hela MANSOURI
- Dr Khaled CHARRADI
- Eng. Hafed GOUBANTINI.
Actually, only a candidature for experienced researcher was considered by the commission, the one of doctor Zakarya Ahmed. He was selected for high quality research on fuel cells and hydrogen storage. But unfortunately, after the positive evaluation of this candidature, Doctor Zakarya Ahmed announced to the commission the acceptance of a permanent position as associated professor in Sousse University of Tunisia.
Currently, although he is an employee of Souse University, also thanks to the short experience in CRTEn, he is having the opportunity to make his research activity at the centre and to collaborate to the ETRERA project (especially in the development of materials for fuel cells application); he was also engaged in the EmHyTeC 2012, the conference of the project (see below please), as member of the Scientific Secretariat and as component of the Scientific Committee. Prof. Zakarya Ahmed now conducts his main research activity in CRTEn.
During 2013, a national competitions for hiring researchers was done by the minister of High Education and research of Tunisia, with open positions at CRTEn. On this occasion, Ibtissem Ben Assaker (one of associated researcher hired through ETRERA) was recruited as stable researcher.
However, there were also some researchers that left the project for better working position.
At the end of 2011, Eng Hafed Goubantini was hired by a French company operating in Tunisia, he sent a letter to prof. Chtorou expressing his thanks to ETRERA project experience.
In 2012, Dr. Zyed Beji has been the winner of a selection for the Chartage University. In this selection the experience matured in ETRERA project was considered really important. Now he is and associated professor in Chartage University, and collaborate with the CRTEn in fuel cells materials.
This activity has been supported by a training activity including exchange of researchers, seminars, participation to short training courses and so on, including the in house realisation of a fuel cell test station that gave the opportunity of learn by doing. The main foregrounds of these activities have been:
- Training for more than 20 researchers and engineers;
- The creation of a research group working on polymer electrolyte fuel cells at CRTEn.
The research group today accounts both persons stably operating in the group, and a number of persons that collaborate periodically (PhD students, engineers and technicians). In particular, a section of this group work on the polymer electrolyte membrane development, and a second section is dedicated to Fuel cells components preparation and characterisation. Finally, the CRTEn director, recently communicated that he would like to enlarge the fuel cell activity by assigning to the new born research group larger spaces in laboratory section of CRTEn. Morever these researchers was able to obtain and publish their first scientific result in fuel cell field before the end of the project (please look at the table of publications).
2) At CRTEn a fuel cell laboratory has been set up. The laboratory is composed by a chemical preparation room, a fuel cell test station room and a number of rooms for engineers and researchers. Starting with two void rooms an operative laboratory was set up and the first experimental results published on peer review journals.
In the framework of the ETRERA project, we designed and realised not only the fuel cell test station, but also the complete set-up of the two laboratory rooms that the CRTEn director assigned to the project.
The set-up of the chemical lab has been conducted under the supervision of Dr. Zakaria Ahmed that selected the material and the chemicals necessaries for the production of polymer electrolyte membranes, both for hydrogen fuelled cell and for direct alcohol cells. The set-up of the test station and of the testing lab has been conducted by e group supervised by Prof. Radouane Chtourou. The design of the test station has been realised with the support of the CNR-ITAE researchers which transferred their know how the Tunisian researchers. To that end, the main components and instrumentation were acquired also from abroad, with some delays due to bureaucratic barriers that with additional efforts were overcome.
The testing lab was equipped also with different sizes reference single cell and one short stack of 300W for allowing the testing of materials and components according to existing standards.
What is really important is that today the CRTEn have an home-made test station that its researchers and engineers are able to manage and modify accordingly with the necessities. In particular they are able to carry out maintenance without external support.
3) The project increased the visibility at international level of each one of the partners, by allowing them to attend a number of conferences presenting both the project and partners research activities. In particular, the organisation of the project conference, EmHyTeC 2012, was a big success both for the scientific quality both for the number of participants (121) coming from 20 countries all around the world, look at table below, please.
Table: Attendants by country to the Euromediterranean Hydrogen Technologies Conference (EmHyTeC) 2012, held in Hammamet (Tunisia) on 11-14 september 2012. Invited personalities to the opening section and people attending only the open section has been not considered.
Country N. of participants Country N. of participants
Algeria 11 Poland 3
Belgium 2 Portugal 1
Brazil 2 Serbia 2
France 5 Slovenia 2
Greece 1 Spain 6
Italy 23 Sweden 1
Japan 4 Tunisia 44
Korea 2 Turkey 1
Libya 4 USA 1
Palestine 1 UK 5
The organisation of the conference requested significant efforts, more than the expected, but also the results has been really over the target, both the number of expected attendants and scientific presentations doubled with respect to the expected number.
Moreover after the conference end, a number of scientist was asked to submit a paper, related to their presentation, to a peer review journal for a special section on the conference. The hosting scientific journal was the “International Journal of Hydrogen Energy”, published by Elsevier. The special section has been published on 30th August 2013 (Vol. 38, issue 26), and includes between the guest editors Gaetano Squadrito and prof. Bruno Auvity from ETRERAproject.
This publication will enhance the visibility of the project, and will maintain the project visibility for long time.
Moreover in the framework of this conference the partnership was enlarged and the proposal for two FP7 calls have been developed. One of these, ETRERA 2020 proposal, has been approved and funded. It will start on September 2013, the kick off meeting is planned on 9th September 2013.
4) At the end of the project the ETRERA partners signed the framework agreement for scientific and technological cooperation for supporting future collaboration. This agreement has been signed with the aims of maintaining active the collaboration and for giving to the project a sustainable future. The agreement foresee both the collaboration in research activities, the training for graduate and PhD students, and the access to research facilities.
Potential Impact:
Also the impacts of the project results accomplished the expected targets, moreover some additional implications have been unexpected and really rewarding. We can resume per point these impacts.
• One of the main implications stimulated by the project was on the CRTEn centre legal status. Before the ETRERA start, the CRTEn status was of “Not Administrative Public Establishment (ENPA), this means that it was not autonomous under to administrative point of view and it was subjected to a high level of bureaucratic constrains.
Thanks to the ETRERA project the CRTEn legal status changed and it has become “Public Establishment with Scientific and Technological character (EPST)”.
• Moreover, the project responsible for CRTEn, prof. Radhouane Chtourou thanks to the exposure gained via the ETRERA project was appointed as president of the Tunisian “National Recruitment Committee for Materials Science”, in a second moment he was appointed on behalf of the Tunisian Ministry of Research and Higher Education as member of the PASRI project steering committee and currently he has been designated as member of the technical cabinet of the Tunisian Ministry of Research and Higher Education.
The involvement of prof. Radhouane Chtourou in the technical cabinet had as a consequence the transfer at central/governmental level of the needs and demands of the peripheral research centres with a closer interaction between these centres and the Ministry. With the strong experience acquired in this project, Prof. Chtourou is carrying with him new ideas for new research policy in Tunisia. A triangulation approach between training, research and regional development is currently under development in the research centres.
Also thanks to ETRERA there is now a wider consideration of the strategic importance of the development of RES technologies in Tunisia. This consideration was also shown by Prof. Moncef Ben Salem the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research during his welcome speech on the occasion of the EmHyTeC opening section addressed to the conference’ participants.
• As we say before, the ETRERA project had among its aims the improving of the research capacity of the CRTEn also via the recruitment of junior researchers and technicians and the recruitment of a principal investigator with experience abroad for forming a new research group at CRTEn.
The new team had a high turnover because some of the new researchers after a period in the Centre succeeded to find a new job with a higher salary, thanks to the know-how acquired Trhough the ETRERA project at CRTEn.
Then, the project was a good opportunity to create new job opportunities both during its development and for the future.
In fact it was able to open new position at CRTEn, in fact one of the researcher trained in the framework of ETRERA has been selected for a permanent position (she will start between September and October 2013).
• Moreover we have to consider the so called “Brain Drain”, on which the project impacted. In fact, Prof. Zakarya Ahmed was selected as principal investigator and he had the chance to return in Tunisia. After a short period in the CRTEn he was hired at the University of Sousse. Although he is an employee of Souse University, also thanks to the short experience in CRTEn, he is having the opportunity to cooperate with the centre and to collaborate to the ETRERA project (especially in the development of materials for fuel cells application); he was also engaged in the EmHyTeC organisation as member of the Scientific Secretariat and as component of the Scientific Committee. Prof. Zakarya Ahmed now conducts his main research activity at CRTEn.
• From the point of view of the scientific impact, ETRERA project gave the possibility to establish a new field of research at CRTEn. In fact now many researchers, students and technicians are conducting research activity in the field of fuel cells. The CRTEn group took part to several national and international conferences. Recently results rise up, and ETRERA partners succeeded to publish scientific papers.
• ETRERA had a positive impact on the relationship with some Tunisian enterprises. Thanks to the new research activities, in fact some cooperation with large companies such as STEG (National Electricity and Gas company), AMG and ASSAD (Batteries) are on the ground.
• The improved innovative research capacity and notoriety was able to stimulate some new cooperation with other institutions such as ENIT and the Universities of Souse and Sfax. This kind of cooperation is allowing students and some researchers to spend some time in the CRTEn’s well-equipped laboratories. It is necessary to highlight that some laboratories of Universities of Sousse and Sfax are not well equipped and the cooperation agreement between the CRTEn and the Universities is allowing the latter to improve rapidly the know-how in the field of membrane & components and sensors for fuel cells.
• There was positive impacts also in Europena Centers. Thanks to ETRERA project, Polytech Nantes received from the Loire Atlantic Regions fund both for reinforcing the fuel cells laboratory instrumentation and for a PhD grant in fuel cell technology having as tutor prof. Bruno Auvity. The selected student started her work on the academic year 2012-2013, and she will close her PhD studies in 2015. Gaetano Squadrito, was selected by the Polytech Nantes as international PhD evaluator.
• The project was also a support to the Tunisian economic system. The impact was even more important in consideration of the current period of crisis and of reduction of the tourist presence in the country due to the European crises and to the political instability of Tunisia. It is important, to consider the multiplier effect of the expenditures stimulated by ETRERA in terms of: New equipments and components acquired in the country or acquired via Tunisian brokers; New researchers and technicians recruited by the CRTEn; Tourist (hotel, taxy, restaurant, catering, souvenirs) services acquired by the ETRERA partners during the 42 project months; Tourist services (hotel, taxy, restaurant, catering, souvenirs) acquired by the participant at the EmHyTeC conference (more than 120 persons) and the tourist services stimulated by the organization of the conference.
We can conclude that the activities performed during the 42 project months will allow us to pave the ground for a new consciousness of the Tunisian research capacity in the field of Renewable Energy sources, Hydrogen and fuel cells fields.
The new visibility acquired by the Centre is stimulating a new discussion on the set-up of new research activities on hydrogen and fuel cells, and it is stimulating in Tunisia a new behaviour on the importance of the research activity on the RES technologies.
Moreover now the centre is increasing its reputation and it is able to attract new research funds and partners.
The CRTEn centre thanks to ETRERA is having even the possibility to enlarge its network thank to the opportunity offered by EmHyTeC conference and by the new project approved by the European Commission, ETRERA 2020. To that regard, the partnership would like to transform EmHyTeC into a cycle of conferences and to exploit ETRERA 2020 for enlarging the network and the topics to be dealt.
List of Websites:
http//:www.etrera.eu
CNR-ITAE (ETRERA coordinator):
Dott. Gaetano Squadrito
Ricercatore / Researcher
Fuel Cell and FC Systems
CNR-ITAE
Via Salita per S.Lucia sopra Contesse, 5
I - 98126 MESSINA
Tel. +39-090624274 Fax +39-090624247
e-mail gaetano.squadrito@itae.cnr.it