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Respect. (from the lat. respectu) n. 1. respect; 2. consideration; high regard; 3. deference; compliance; veneration; 4. honour; worship; 5. relation; refererence...
We believe that everyone should be respected for their work, for their attitudes, opinions and options.
Rigor. (from the lat. rigore) n. 1. harshness; strength; 2.fig., severity; punctuality; accuracy.
There is no "more or less levelled", "more or less upright”, "more or less clean" or "more or less safe", but rather “levelled”, "upright”, "clean” and “safe". The rigour is reflected in our procedures, in time and in the rules to follow. In the light of moral and principles, being severe means being rigorous.
Passion. (from the lat. passione) n. 1. intense and usually violent feeling (affection, joy, hate, etc.) which hinders the exercise of impartial logic; 2. derived from a feeling; 3. great predilection; 4. partiality; 5. great grief; immense suffering...
Under the sign of passion – a text of the Portuguese poet Regina Guimarães – is our icon. Passion is to reveal great enthusiasm for something, favourable encouragement or opposite to something.
It is the sensibility transmitted by an architect or engineer through work.
Passion is the dedication to a project. Passion is a state of warm soul.
Loyalty. (from the lat. legalitate) n. the quality of being loyal; fidelity; sincerity.
Respect for the principles and rules that guide the honour and probity. Faithfulness to commitments and agreements undertaken, staunch character.
To remain loyal to the business partners because we depend on them and they depend on us.
Being trustworthy for being loyal.
Solidarity. (from the lat. solidare) n. 1. the quality of being solidary; 2. reciprocal responsibility among the members of a group, namely social, professional, etc.; 3. sense of sharing another’s suffering.
Being solidary is being a friend, offering our hand with genuine generosity and bringing joy and human warmth to those who, somehow, are marginalized. Being solidary is being more human. A solidary company is recognized as a fair and non-selfish company. A solidary company is a preferred choice in business. It is a more competitive company. Volunteering is a vehicle to solidarity. It is modern, fair, cultured, friend, it is a noble gesture of moral elevation.
Courage. (from the lat. coraticum) n. 1. bravery facing danger; intrepidity; to have audacity; 2. moral force before a suffering or setback; 3. [fig.] to input energy when performing a difficult task; perseverance...
Courage is essential in our life. Courage to face less pleasant situations when complex issues come up, not expecting random resolutions.
It is a value that we must highlight as opposed to the fearful, cowardly and laziness.
The courage to react to criticism not with an attitude of demotivation or sadness, but rather to search for the means and the action to overcome its own reason. This kind of courage, which is also an intellectual courage, is highly recommended.
Ambition. (from the lat. ambitione) n. 1. vehement desire of wealth, honours or glories; 2. expectation about the future; aspiration; 3. lust; greed…
Vehement desire to achieve a particular goal. Ambition not to resign ourselves. Ambition to take the best potential from ourselves. Ambition to deserve ourselves. Ambition to be athletes in our top-level competitive jobs. Ambition to beat our brands. Ambition to get the best deals with the maximum value, due to the high levels of proficiency and efficiency.
Esthetics. ESTHETICS (from the Greek aisthetiké, "sensitive") n.f. 1. Philosophy branch of philosophy that studies the beauty and nature of artistic phenomena; 2. author's own style, time, etc.; 3. harmony of shapes and colors, beauty; 4. set of techniques and treatments that aim to beautify the body.
We decided to build the company's economic foundations under a cultured, cosmopolitan and cool image. Because it is a charming state of being. Good taste because we are sustainable and we respect the planet. Good taste because we are sensitive. Good taste just because.
Responsibility. (from the lat respondere) n. the trait of being answerable to someone for something or being responsible for one's conduct; a form of trustworthiness.
We must be certain that, before a choice, we chose what is best for both of us and not just the best for each one. Each employee is responsible for his negotiated activity and co-responsible if the co-worker does not fulfil his own task, thus preventing the common goal. A team is a set of individuals - is a whole. In the business game, as in social or family contexts, everyone must comply with their own relative position and we shall not permit that one of ours fails to be in our team.
Expresso
To mitigate the intermittency of renewable energies, one company has developed a project that reuses batteries to store energy from these sources. It has also created another project that improves building energy management, with the help of batteries developed previously. The aim is to connect ideas to promote the energy transition.
Batteries and renewable energy are among the fundamental factors in a successful energy transition. In 2024, electricity produced using solar energy surpassed that produced using coal in the European Union for the first time, according to a report by the think tank Ember. Several projects seek to replicate this feat in the coming years.
With Portuguese buildings responsible for around 30 per cent of final energy consumption, the Building Hope project aimed to mitigate energy waste and create low energy consumption buildings, powered by renewable sources. "The idea is to look at the building holistically," explains Mauro Costa, innovation manager at dstsolar, who coordinated the project funded to the tune of almost 1.5 million euros through the COMPETE 2020 programme, of which around 913,000 euros came from the European Regional Development Fund. The technologies developed were implemented in an industrial building, a commercial building and a service building.
Meanwhile, the Baterias 2030 project, supported by COMPETE 2020 to the tune of 8.1 million euros, including around 5.3 million euros of ERDF incentives, aims to reuse batteries from the automotive industry, as well as using new generation batteries to provide capacity to store energy from renewable sources. The "batteries will collect all the surplus energy produced during a normal day" and this surplus will be distributed among the members of an energy community. "The Baterias 2030 project comes at a time when there is still no legal support for such communities and was a very important step in making this support a reality," he says.
dstsolar is working on other EU financed projects, including SMART-PV, which has received almost 1.2 million euros of funding through COMPETE 2020, including almost 800,000 euros from the ERDF, and is leading the New Generation Storage agenda, a follow-up to the Baterias 2030 project, backed by around 194 million euros of PRR funding. Mauro Costa also emphasises that "the idea of innovation is not to work on projects in isolation, but to ensure that all projects always lead to energy efficiency".
What did the Batteries 2030 project involve?
DST Solar led the Baterias 2030 project, which aimed to tackle the challenges of decarbonisation by establishing renewable energy communities, using new generation batteries, while also giving a new lease of life to second life batteries. The initiative sought to solve the problem of intermittency that exists in the field of renewables, thus facilitating a transition to a more sustainable energy mix in our country.
Where were the technologies developed applied?
As part of the Baterias 2030 project, a living lab was created to showcase all the technologies developed during the project and test them in a real environment.
A wide range of technologies have been developed, such as second life storage solutions allocated to photovoltaic plants, smart poles for self-sufficient solar and wind powered lighting, new batteries such as redox flow batteries, hydrogen fuel cells and asymmetric super capacitors, and thermoelectric flooring that harnesses the difference in thermal gradient to generate energy day and night. On top of all of this, it culminated in the development of an energy management platform that optimised power distribution within energy communities.
Following on from Batteries 2030, what is the New Generation Storage agenda?
From the outset, it will make it possible to create, enable and strengthen a fully circular battery ecosystem in Portugal, covering the entire process from refining to recycling and recovery of raw materials. We are not talking about extracting lithium but improving lithium refining processes. It will also develop a new generation of energy storage systems throughout the value chain, through the implementation of high added value and more environmentally sustainable products and processes. It will establish a battery innovation ecosystem called Made in Portugal, based entirely on sustainable new technologies and business models, with an industrial and environmentally responsible value chain.
The end result of the project will be a refining value chain, which will contribute to a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of approximately 52 per cent compared to traditional refining processes.
What were SmartGlow's objectives?
The aim was to create a system that provides electricity from renewable sources, which is scalable and can be applied in different areas, but always using an off-grid approach. The system is based on microgrids, with a strong focus on increasing renewable self-consumption capacity, through optimised control of storage systems. There is still a storage system because this is very much designed for off-grid set ups, so a coupled storage system is indispensable. It has a smart control layer, where it is possible to integrate all the electrical charges. This solution is especially useful for remote areas with no electricity, which can utilise the hybrid microgrid concept.
What are the advantages of the system developed?
The system is designed to work with very sensitive critical loads, which do not allow high levels of electromagnetic charge. In this respect, this development has met all the rigorous technical demands that were foreseen, promoting sustainability and energy efficiency in the industrial sector. It also demonstrates the viability of renewable self-consumption technologies, which can also be applied to more complex and much more sensitive systems. It is a system that can easily be applied to the healthcare industry, for example imaging or radiology, which work with much more sensitive loads.
What did the Building Hope project entail?
We have pioneered advances in the detection and collection of data and the development of methodologies based on artificial intelligence to facilitate a transition to a cleaner energy future. Building Hope focused on improving the energy efficiency of buildings by developing and testing a holistic optimisation tool so that we can intervene in the building in a joined-up manner and understand where we can act to increase the efficiency of the building itself.
The technology developed offered state-of-the-art functionalities for energy management systems, allowing us to detail the energy consumption of services and manage the assets of the building itself. It was also possible to optimise the operation of energy generation, storage and demand systems, and [produce] energy sales contracts. There was a series of features that it was important to define and the building was able to achieve this.
What technologies were developed through the SMART-PV project?
The project has a platform that will use artificial intelligence to foresee which elements of a photovoltaic park could fail, not immediately, but in a week or two. It is therefore a predictive system, enabling us to act before the failure occurs. A very important point of SMART-PV is this ability to act before the failure occurs, because if we act after the failure has occurred, this leads to increased costs and, on the client side, loss of revenue while the photovoltaic park is at a standstill.
What are the other advantages of this system?
The SMART-PV system also automates certain tasks, i.e. using a drone, it can take a thermographic reading of the entire park and use this reading to detect and automatically catalogue faults. The operations and maintenance team are able to detect faults much more efficiently and remedy them much more quickly than if they were analysing panel by panel.