Technology transfer in renewable energies, power electronics, energy control, electrical vehicles...

It is formed by 9 UPC professors, 7 PhD, 15 hired engineers and 30 undergraduate and postgraduate, the center has been recognized as a Catalan technology reference center with high capacity and experience and solid enough to carry out projects of all kinds, whether from commercial projects with private companies to European projects in cooperation with various institutions and companies throughout Europe. Thus, from the same 2001 CITCEA is part of the TECNIO network, which includes research centers and technology transfer centers which are able to develop top level technological projects. Moreover, in 2009 the center was given official recognition by the AGAUR about being a consolidated research group of Catalonia. This recognition has been renewed in 2014.

The expertise of CITCEA lies in all kinds of applications where control of energy and/or movement are needed. In this area the technologies developed are: electricity, control, electronics, power electronics, communications and industrial control with digital processors. The applications of these technologies range from automation of processes and machines to renewable energy and the electric grid, among many others.

The fields of specialization where CITCEA has deep knowledge through basic research and applied research for industry are:

• Electric vehicles: impact, laws, charging protocols and specifications, business models…
• Smart grids: Efficiency, market and regulation, monitoring, design, power quality and security in the energy supply…
• Wind energy: Grid integration, turbines technology, offshore power plants, HVDC…
• Solar energy: Grid integration, inverters, panel emulation, PV followers…
• Microgrids: Design, grid synchronization, storage, anti-islanding, IEC 61850 communications…
• Power electronics: Converters, battery chargers, DSP control…
• Automation and industrial communication: Control and management, movement, high speed transmission hardware and software design…
• Digital control: Signal processing, analogic to digital conversion, state observation, non-linear and multivariable control…
• Electric machines: Engine and generators design, Finite element simulations, drives, vectorial control, sensorless control…

CITCEA-UPC is member of:

• ECPE European Center for Power Electronics (http://www.ecpe.org/);
• IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (www.ieee.org/);
• EPE European Power Electronics and Drives Association (www.epe-association.org/);
• CIGRÉ International Council on Large Electric Systems taking part of the working group “SC B4 HVDC and Power Electronics” (“B4-55 HVDC Connection of Offshore Wind Power Plants” and “B4-58 Devices for Load flow Control and Methodologies for Direct Voltage Control in a Meshed HVDC Grid);
• LPQI. Leonardo Power Quality Initiative, Global Community for Sustainable Energy Professionals (http://www.leonardo-energy.org/);
• CHAdeMO Association for EV communications protocol, EtherCAT Technology Group and CAN in Automation - International users' and manufacturers' group.

Members of CITCEA-UPC take part in the “Academics Forum of Friends of the Supergrid (FOSG)” and belong to the editorial board of “IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery”, “Power & Energy Society (IEEE-PES)” and “Task Force on Microgrid Control”.

During the last five years, CITCEA has obtained the following scientific and technological results:

• Published articles: 113
• Books and book chapters: 7
• Congress presentations: 89
• PhD thesis advised: 26
• Patents: 4
• Total number of citations: 1153
• European competitive projects: 29
  • 2 FP7
  • 4 H2020
• National competitive projects: 39
• Private technology transfer projects: 86