In the Mijares industrial estate, in Almassora, the company Neptury Technologies designs and produces machinery to manufacture battery cells that it exports mainly to Asia. The person in charge of it, Enrique Navarro, has just participated last week in a sectorial fair in Japan, where he has met many of his clients, whom he has supplied since 2014, “when nobody was talking about batteries”, he comments. .
This week this engineering company from Castellón has participated in the eMobility Expo World Congress showing its machinery, an electrode depositor using Inkjet technology that, they say, offers advantages in the manufacture of batteries, such as savings of up to 30% of the active material deposited in electrodes and, above all, having control of the battery because “whoever controls the machinery controls the battery,” says Navarro.
Neptury could be one of the suppliers of the gigafactory, and also a local one. His is an example of the work that the sector linked to mobility has been doing for some time from the Valencian Community and that now, with the upcoming gigafactory of a giant like Seat-Volkswagen, is achieving greater visibility. “There is a whole ecosystem that is being formed around the electric vehicle,” explains David Santiago, CEO of TERA Battery Recycling, another company, in this case based in Alicante and dedicated to giving batteries a second life, which was created in March 2022.
The latest figures from the INE show that the production of machinery, electrical and electronic equipment and transport material are the fastest growing sectors in the Valencian Community, where Spanish industrial production has grown the most between June 2015 and January 2023. with an increase of 7%, according to the latest Industrial Production Index (IPI) of the INE.
There are many investments and investigations in the framework of electromobility based in the Valencian Community. Last week the Valencian Institute of Competitiveness financed with nearly half a million euros the first battery laboratory in the Valencian Community, which is managed by the Technological Institute of Energy and with which it is intended to support the Valencian industrial ecosystem in the approach of the different existing challenges for the technological and industrial evolution of batteries.
It is a new market for which this shore of the Mediterranean wants to be a reference. “The Valencian Community is working in a very clear direction to make this a new industrialization. The first stones have already been laid in this direction and that sets us apart from other regions of Spain and Europe,” says Pau Sanchis, head of affairs members of the European Association of Battery Manufacturers, which Valencia chose to hold its annual convention during the congress this past week and which it will repeat in 2024.
Eurobat’s general manager, Alfons Westgeest, maintains that when deciding on investments such as PowerCo’s, “what is sought at the same time is to create an ecosystem that simultaneously helps other companies to develop and attract them, and we are in that moment”. And it is that if future investors are attracted to what is being prepared, those who have already made the decision say that they looked at the Valencian Community for its sustainable commitment, as the CEO of PowerCo Spain recognized this week.
The location of solar plants on industrial land or on the roofs of factories is one of the current trends, as is already being done by Ford and Power Electronics, another prominent agent of the new Valencian mobility. The Llíria company produces charging solutions for large fleets or public chargers as well as energy conversion systems for energy storage and solar inverters for photovoltaic plants.
With faith in ‘green’ mobility, Baleària is also located in the territory, of whose fleet a total of nine ships are prepared to sail on natural gas. Its energy conversion adds up to an investment of 380 million euros in the last decade “in terms of sustainability” and to this will be added the Cap de Barbaria, the first 100% electric ferry that these days has carried out the first tests in Vigo and that this spring You can now start browsing. The ship has an energy storage system, with state-of-the-art lithium batteries, which will give it a range of 12 hours in port.
Lithium batteries are also in the electric plane in which the technical teams of Air Nostrum, based in Quart de Poblet, work. The project is a collaboration with the developer Dante Aeronautical and the airline Volotea and converts short and medium range commercial aircraft with a propulsion powered by a hybrid system of batteries and hydrogen cells.
It is one of the company’s sustainable mobility projects, which recognizes that regulation in this sector is “demanding”, with slow progress and subject to a multitude of certifications to guarantee safety. Company sources explain that this and the agreement with Universal Hydrogen to propel its fleet of turboprops with hydrogen are in their initial phase, “but with expectations set in the coming years.”
The airline has committed itself so that by 2030 10% of the fuel consumed is sustainable (SAF), but they remember that this will be “if the market rules facilitate it”; and they do not rule out adding the Airlander to their operations as soon as possible to make short-haul flights (less than 500 kilometers between cities) with about 100 passengers on board, since its fuel consumption is 90% less than the of today’s aircraft.
La Vall d’Uixò was added yesterday to this hub that paints the Valencian map of the mobility industry, where Stadler, which produces trains and locomotives, will shortly put into operation a 12,000-square-meter assembly plant with at least 100 new workstations. job. There it will locate a new assembly line, still undefined and scheduled for before the summer.
