The National Centre for Energy has been evaluated as outstanding

The final administration part of the opposition procedure of the National Centre for Energy (NCE) project, which was co-financed from the state budget by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA CR) within the National Centres for Competence Programme, took place at the headquarters of the TA CR in Prague on Monday 19 June 2023.

The National Centre for Energy project, which was implemented in the period 2019 - 2022, aimed to stimulate long-term cooperation between leading research organisations and energy enterprises. R&D teams comprising experts from a dozen Czech universities and sixteen industrial partners focused on new technologies leading to increased efficiency, safety and reliability of existing energy units, increased reliability and safety of energy networks, and efficient deployment and operation of decentralised energy sources and the use of alternative fuels.

The final opposition procedure was attended by the principal investigator Stanislav Mišák and Centre manager Sylva Krčmářová as well as representatives of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic and the project opponents. In his presentation prof. Mišák summarized the main objectives of the project and their implementation, cooperation across the consortium and project follow-up activities. In particular, he emphasized the fact that thanks to the implementation of the project, the unique infrastructures and know-how of the expert teams of the existing research centres have been shared. As a result, 33 joint sub-projects of applied research could be addressed, through which a total of 313 R&D outputs were produced. The overall credibility of the National Centre for Energy and its position as an innovation leader in the field of modern energy is further confirmed by the fact that 32% of the project budget was made up of income from commercialisation activities, among other things thanks to the successfully commercialised technologies.

The opponent panel concluded that the National Energy Centre project met its objectives in all application segments and sub-projects. The sub-projects implementation contributed to the achievement of the programme objectives with new and original outputs that are suitable for immediate implementation thanks to the direct participation of industrial application partners. TA CR representatives also appreciated the effective management and mutual cooperation among the centre members, which ensured the creation of a stable base of science and research for the field of modern non-nuclear energy. The project is followed up this year by the National Centre for Energy II comprising 34 entities, most of which are the original centre members as well as new enterprises.