The company's ‘innovation factory’ is an example of this. Created in 2020, it is designed to reinforce Galp's proximity to global innovation, with a particular focus on the business community involved in the development of clean-tech solutions, based on three different pillars: open innovation, an innovation studio and an innovation methodologies centre of excellence. On the one hand, explains Ana Casaca, “Galp is opening up to the outside community with the aim of working in win-win partnerships with start-ups and universities to bring more technology and more solutions and products into our home, in addition to speeding up the development of products and services for Galp”. This open innovation enables the company to anticipate and follow trends, taking advantage of the sharing of knowledge between the company, universities and the market.
With regard to testing concepts, Ana Casaca underlines the essential role of Galp's ‘innovation studio’. “This, be it a physical or digital environment, is where our business units are able to conduct prompt tests on potential products and services from the customer's point of view, to ascertain whether or not they are viable and if we can scale up, always pursuant to a start-up type logic”. Galp's head of innovation believes that one of the missions of large-scale companies in the area of innovation is the promotion of the scalability of technological solutions.
Another integral part of the innovation factory is the 'Innovation Methodologies Centre of Excellence', from where new ways of working and thinking in Galp's day-to-day activities emerge. “This includes design thinking methodologies and design sprints that will provide us with new ways of working and planning the future”, reinforces Ana Casaca.
MOBILITY IS ESSENTIAL
An integral part of the strategy for innovation, electric mobility is one of the key pieces in this puzzle, and one of the areas increasingly committed to the strength of an ecosystem of partners with a common vision. Among the different projects the department of mobility has been working on, Ana Casaca underscores the Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology pilot project, recently unveiled at the Ecar Show in Lisbon. “V2G is the result of the enormous efforts of an ecosystem of partners led by Galp”. The head of innovation explains that “we have managed to find a technology that enables us to test a change in the customer journey”. This is an inversion of the paradigm of electrical charging, as a bidirectional flow is being tested, or in other words, from one vehicle to another, from a vehicle to the grid or to a building. “The project arose from Galp's idea that electric mobility and new forms of mobility are proving to be different and, in this regard, we have managed to create an ecosystem that enables us to test a solution in partnership with an American start-up and a number of Portuguese firms”.
Developed by the US company Nuvve, V2G technology was tested over several months in 10 Eletricidade dos Açores electric vehicles, as part of a pilot project that also included the participation of the Portuguese company Magnum Cap, Nissan, DGEG, ERSE and the Government of the Azores. “We want to ensure that the technology is safe, that it guarantees the grid energy stability, in addition to working with the regulator to demystify some of the barriers to entry with regard to new technologies”, adds Ana Casaca.
“We want to ensure that the technology [V2G] is safe, that it guarantees the grid energy stability, in addition to working with the regulator”
Still in the field of electric mobility, the person in charge of innovation at Galp highlights another project that brought together the energy enterprise and a start-up based at the University of Porto innovation centre. This is “a portable battery that enables you to charge your electric vehicle wherever you are”, says Ana Casaca. As she explains, “we worked internally with AddVolt for a period of two months and developed a joint concept that made sense to Galp's department of innovation”. The aim was to promptly ascertain whether or not the product was viable enough to be placed on the market. There are no immediate plans to put the product on sale, but, guarantees Ana Casaca, “we are still working towards this goal”.
