In this new digital era Industry 4.0 falls into line with the European Union’s 2020 Strategy in search of a more competitive, secure and sustainable energy system.

Innovation and a combination of technologies and systems like Big Data, Internet of Things, Cloud Computing or Augmented Reality can all together be an enormous aid in helping companies achieve their full potential. These technologies favor end-to-end optimization of the industry’s whole value chain while also driving productivity, improving energy efficiency and boosting sustainability. In all these fields Spain now boasts benchmark projects at world level that pose huge challenges for the European Union.

The platform called Plataforma enerTIC sets out to drive energy-efficiency and sustainability-favoring technology. It has now held a meeting to present the main new features of the 7th Smart Energy Congress: “Digital Transformation, leading Energy Efficiency”, a flagship event at European level in technology and innovation for energy efficiency and sustainability, sponsored and participated in by GMV. During the meeting Francisco Verderas, founder of enerTIC, and Óscar Azorín, Director of enerTIC, put forward the incorporation of Industry 4.0 as one of the main issues to be dealt with in the Smart Energy Congress on 11 and 12 April, as well as Smart Cities and Smart Data Centers, where marquee European projects will be showcased.

In the words of Miguel Hormigo, Industry 4.0 Team Leader at GMV and participant in the panel discussion of the 7^th Smart Energy Congress: “The demand side is becoming increasingly sophisticated and calls for more intelligent and personalized solutions. In the first phases of this new industrialization, technological application and talent is so important that they are bound to a determining factor in the development of organizations and the following phases in terms of building up new business models. These enabling technologies are those that, properly applied, have the capacity of modifying the development of processes, products and business models with the aim of achieving smart industry that optimizes the use of its own resources and improves energy efficiency. We are referring here to technologies like Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Cyberphysical Systems, Simulation and Augmented Reality, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Additive Manufacture, Cybersecurity, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things and other technologies dubbed disruptive that are cropping up now or in the future and will have a big impact, such as automation of processes, transactions and relations between different parties with Blockchain”.

Participants in the press conference: Ricardo Abad, Managing Director of Quark; Jesús Chapado, Subdirector of Technological Development and Innovation of Gas Natural Fenosa; Francisco Verderas, founder of enerTIC; Adrián Nogales, Institutional Relations Director of the Professional Association of Telecommunication Engineers (Colegio Oficial de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación: COIT); Miguel Hormigo, GMV’s Industry 4.0 Team Leader; Ignacio Madrid Benito, Digital Utilities Director of Everis; and Óscar Azorín, Director of enerTIC.