Spanish companies reaffirm benefits from their participation in ITER

On 18 April 2018, the Catalan Association of Industrial Engineers held an information day on the ITER project with the participation of F4E, CIEMAT, CDTI and various Spanish industrial companies.

In welcoming the participants, Jordi Renom, President of the Association, and Stavros Chatzipanagiotou, F4E Head of Communication, insisted on the importance of energy in the world, the challenges of climate change and the potential of fusion to provide abundant, clean and safe energy in the future. Joaquin Sanchez, Head of fusion research at CIEMAT and Chair of the F4E Governing Board, explained the fundamentals of fusion, while Jesus Izquierdo, Associate to the F4E Chief Engineer, presented the progress and engineering challenges of the ITER project. Finally, Victor Saez, Head of F4E Market Intelligence, and Ann Belen del Cerro, Spanish Industry Liaison Officer, explained business opportunities and how to get involved in the project.

The audience consisted of numerous members of the Catalan engineering community, companies interested in possible business opportunities, as well as graduate and postgraduate engineering students looking for a career in fusion. The ITER Day would not have been complete without the voice of the industrial partners. Four companies – Ferrovial, Empresarios Agrupados, APPlus+ Laboratories and FUS_ALLIANZ Science, Engineering & Consulting – ranging from large engineering to small innovative ventures, took the floor to provide testimonies of their involvement to the project. Working for ITER provides them with a “quality label” opening other business opportunities, it stretches their frontiers of knowledge and forces them to innovate and go a step beyond. Oriol Ribas from Ferrovial highlighted the feeling of being part of ITER: “we take great pride in working for the greatest international collaboration in energy – at the same time, we feel the importance of the mission we have to bring fusion energy to mankind.”