In what has been baptized Innovation Year in the Basque Country, the region has got a little closer to achieving one of the most ambitious goals set by the Basque Government in energy, to cover 12 per cent of energy demand in the Basque region with wind, solar, photovoltaic, thermal and marine power sources by 2010.

Although today these alternative energy sources already provide 5 per cent of energy demanded in the Basque Country, the regional government's Industry Department, led by regional minister Ana Aguirre, through Basque Energy Board EVE, is backing a project to launch cooperative research centre, CIC Energigune, in Alava. Energigune is a pioneering initiative for Europe.

This 30-million-euro project (7.5 million of which is to go on a new high-tech building to house laboratories to raise scientific capability levels in the area) is to be managed by a largely private foundation involving leading Basque-based Spanish energy multinationals Iberdrola, Gamesa, Guascor, Sener, Cegasa, Naturgas and the Mondragon group.

The public part of the project is to be found in the Basque regional government (via the Industry and Education Departments), the Alava Provincial Council and the Alava Technology Park, besides future cooperation from the University of the Basque Country (UPV) and Mondragon University, not forgetting help and cooperation from Tecnalia and the Basque Energy Cluster.

The renewable energy research and coordination centre will be up and running in three years' time at the Alava Technology Park in Miñano, where one hundred top-level scientists will be looking in depth and long-term into a range of alternative energy sources and their own prototypes.

These include agricultural waste-based bio-fuels, transforming sea waves into power, and storing energy in fuel cells, described by CIC Energigune director Jesús María Goiri as "a revolution in the sector in around 10 or 15 years." "We'll be looking for new technologies and to produce our own prototypes", explains Goiri. "Where cells are concerned, we will try to investigate and store energy in advanced cells that go beyond what is available on the market today.