The National Renewable Energy Centre (CENER) is a technology centre specialized in applied research, and the development and promotion of renewable energies. It is highly rated and has acknowledged national and international prestige. CENER, as a foundation, is an organization destined to support renewable energies sector competitiveness in order to help companies to reach their R&D needs. It offers high added value services and activities and transferring technology by means of a cutting-edge technological infrastructure, with the most modern laboratories and facilities in Europe. Staff is approx. 200 people, where around 80% are technical organized in 6 Technical Departments: Wind Energy, Photovoltaic, Solar Thermal, Energy Building, Grid Energy Integration and Biomass Energy.
CENER Biomass Department, composed of a multidisciplinary staff, over 21 people, some of them with more than fifteen years’ experience in biomass and bio-based products, with specific knowledge in biology, chemistry, agronomy and chemical engineering, performs applied research activities in the field of biomass, providing R&D services and technical assistance to all agents of the sector. The area is focused on the development & optimization of production processes of bioproducts, solid biofuels, advanced liquid or gaseous biofuels, as well as biorefinery concepts. Indeed, the main pillars are focused on solid biofuels, bioprocesses and comprehensive sustainability assessment of the bio and bioproducts.
The main infrastructures in this department include the Biomass Laboratory (biomass & biofuels characterization and process development at lab scale) , as well as the Biorefinery and Bioenergy Centre (BIO2C). The BIO2C is a semi-industrial pilot scale test facility able to develop production processes for bioproducts, solid biofuels, advanced liquid or gaseous biofuels, as well as biorefinery concepts integrating different valorization routes, as an intermediate step between laboratory and the industrial scale-up of these technologies. The centre constitutes an integrated trial and demonstration platform designed to develop processes, equipment and specific, components, new bio-products or biofuels and bio-refinery concepts