The FlexRICAN 3rd Consortium Meeting took place in France from April 9-11, with each day hosted by a different project partner: Energy Pool in Le Bourget-du-Lac on the first day, LNCMI CNRS in Grenoble on the second, and G2Elab in Grenoble on the third.
The first day kicked off on April 9 at Energy Pool offices in Le Bourget-du-Lac with a welcome message from Fabien Voisin, SVP Business & Operations at Energy Pool. Further welcome was extended by Marion Perrin, Research Director at Energy Pool and FlexRICAN Consortium Member, and Serkan Üçer, FlexRICAN project Coordinator.
The day included a site visit to CEA INES – French National Institute for Solar Energy, where the visitors could familiarise themselves with the research and development in photovoltaic solar technologies. After the site visit to CEA INES, participants joined their respective work package (WP) meetings. The day ended with sessions on deliverables and a milestone to be completed by the end of the summer 2025.
The second day of the meeting was hosted by EMFL-Grenoble (LNCMI). The director of the laboratory, Charles Simon and the Development Engineer, Francois Debray, opened the day with a brief speech followed by a reflection on WP1 and WP8 and, later, a site visit to LNCMI.
The day had a special exploitation session on Energy Sustainability in Research Infrastructures (RIs) with external guests who brought their views on the sustainability needs of RIs and how this could be tackled based on their area of expertise. The report and video recording of the session will be shared later on in all digital channels of the project.
The day ended with a site visit to ESRF – The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility where the visitors could observe the heat pump room and hear about the facility’s improvements in waste heat recovery practices.
On the final day of the Consortium Meeting, the participants were welcomed by Frederic Wurtz, Director of Research at G2Elab and were invited on a visit around the institution. The day was highlighted with the first training within the framework of the FlexRICAN project, which was recorded and is planned to be shared on the YouTube channel of the project.
As the first half of the project comes to an end at the end of summer, the 3rd FlexRICAN Consortium Meeting was a key event in overseeing the progress, facilitating WP-related synergies and planning the roadmap for the 2nd part of the project. The 3rd FlexRICAN Consortium Meeting was also essential in achieving the milestone – M14 Online training of RI staff 1, which later will be published on our YouTube channel and the exploration of the potential perspectives for the project outcomes. All of these were documented accordingly for further communication and dissemination activities of the FlexRICAN project.
