Reserva de horas
Jordi Renau completed his degree in Industrial Engineering in 2007 at University Jaume I in Castello´n. Ten years later, in 2017, he obtained his doctoral degree from Cardenal Herrera University (UCH) in Valencia, Spain, where he has been working since 2010. He currently holds the position of Assistant Professor at the same university. Over the period 2007–2010, he improved his skills by collaborating with two different entities. The first was a research institute in Valencia (Instituto Tecnolo´gico de la Energi´a), where he was introduced to research in the fields of hydrogen and energy storage systems. The second was a factory in Castello´n (ITACA), where he learnt how to design and build automated electrical wardrobes. These experiences have been very valuable in his current research career.
Jordi’s research career began when he moved to Madrid in 2008 to complete an Official Master (granted by CSIC). Here, he had the opportunity to join the “Spanish Team” at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, where he was involved in the development of a Nearly- Zero Energy House (NZEH) to be presented at the international Solar Decathlon (2009), in Washington DC, USA. The lived experience and the gained expertise led him to join the “Valencian Team” of the UCH for the European editions of the Solar Decathlon in 2010 and 2012. After the first edition, he was hired by the UCH as a Researcher and Lecturer and was promoted to the role of Team Project Manager for the UCH project in the 2012 Solar Decathlon (SD) Europe edition. In all three SD editions, he was also in charge of photovoltaic and electrical system development and operation. NZEHs were in the early stages of development in 2009 but are now a social reality due to changes in Spanish and European regulations. Results and knowledge from the 2012 edition were disseminated through two scientific papers in the peer-reviewed Energy&Buildings journal. This milestone was reached while Jordi Renau was a PhD candidate enrolled in the UCH doctoral programme.
The PhD thesis involved the development of a hydrogen fuel cell-based power plant for a high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle. The PhD was written within the framework of a competitive research project led by the LIFTEC-CSIC laboratory (ENE2012-38642-C02-01) using the technology of Medavia, an aeronautical company located in Alicante. The PhD thesis led to the development of four peer-reviewed papers and eight conference presentations. In the meantime, a research consortium was formed between LIFTEC-CSIC (Zaragoza), IRI-CSIC (Barcelona), and UCH (Valencia) to work in a coordinated manner to promote research and development in the fields of hydrogen and energy, leading to two competitive coordinated research projects (DPI2015-69286-C3-3-R and RTI2018-096001-B-C33), where Jordi Renau was the second PI in the 2018 project, where researchers from INTA were included. The consortium has been working on the application of hydrogen technologies in the building sector and the development of hybrid powerplants for unmanned vehicles. Jordi Renau has also been working on green hydrogen production since 2018, thanks to the available facilities in the UCH laboratory funded by the above-mentioned projects. He is currently co-directing the thesis of a PhD candidate on the hybridization of renewable sources and energy storage systems such as electrochemical batteries and hydrogen. In 2021 Jordi Renau received a grant from the Regional Government (GVA) to lead a knowledge transfer project for hydrogen production in small- and medium-sized regional companies to improve their competitiveness. He has also been working on the regulation and standardization of processes with the national committee: UNE/CTN 222: “Tecnologi´a de las pilas de combustible<” since 2019. During his research career, Jordi Renau has also worked with industrial companies to improve energy efficiency and energy production from renewable sources (QI-UHV).
More information: ORCID and LinkedIn