Iberdrola and the Qatar Investment Promotion Agency (IPA Qatar) have signed an agreement to strengthen their strategic alliance in innovation, by which the Spanish company’s Research, Development and Innovation (R&D) activities will be expanded through of its Iberdrola Innovation Middle East center, based in Doha. As reported by the company in a statement, this new collaboration will contribute “to promoting innovative solutions and products in the public and private sectors.”
The center, currently located in the Qatar Science and Technology Park, will delve into the technological challenges related to innovation and digitization in terms of smart grids, integration of renewable energies and energy efficiency.
In this sense, Iberdrola pointed out that the contribution of the Qatari agency “will be key” to accelerate the projects of the innovation platform located in the country’s capital.
Specifically, the platform will focus on aligning the R&D activities carried out by Iberdrola with the needs of the Qatari industry and will cooperate with companies and training centers to promote local talent. It will do this through training and skills development programs and will share intellectual property rights with local educational and industrial institutions.
The president of the energy company, Ignacio Sánchez Galán, who reaffirmed this alliance at a business meeting organized by the CEOE (Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations), stated that “Iberdrola has been and will continue to be an accelerator of the expansion of small companies in the world.
The manager added that Iberdrola’s experience in Qatar for almost 20 years is the best testimony of the opportunities in the country. “Today we have signed an expansion agreement here, consolidating a center that is already a world reference in smart grids, renewable energy integration and energy efficiency, and without a doubt the most advanced in the Middle East in its field,” he said.
The Qatar Investment Promotion Agency oversees activities under the Invest Qatar brand and acts as the country’s umbrella organization for attracting foreign investment.
Through its close coordination with Qatari licensing platforms, it helps companies advance their ambitions and achieve long-term success by providing the necessary support, advice and expertise.
IPA Qatar’s goal is to showcase the emirate as an exceptional investment destination, connecting international investors with business opportunities, while advancing the country’s economic diversification and development goals across all sectors and geographies.
This new agreement thus deepens the strategic alliance sealed in recent years between Iberdrola and Qatar. Thus, the energy company’s leadership in digitization and renewable energy has allowed it to take advantage of cooperation opportunities with the Qatari government since 2005, a country determined to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons.
The collaboration between the two was consolidated in 2011, when the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) became the main shareholder of Iberdrola. Since then, the Spanish company has always grown with the support of Qatar for its business model, betting on investment in renewable energy, smart electrical networks, storage and smart solutions for our customers.
This strategic alliance has allowed the company to multiply its size by six, becoming the largest company on the Spanish stock market, with nearly 70,000 million euros of market capitalization, the largest electricity company in Europe, and one of the four largest in the world .
As a result of this close collaboration, in 2016 Iberdrola decided to create the Iberdrola Innovation Middle East, from where it develops solutions based on cutting-edge digital technology for three essential areas of the global energy sector: the integration of renewable energies, smart grids and solutions for end-user customers .
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