Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas (CERTH)
The Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas (CERTH), founded in 2000, is a leading Research Centre in Greece and in the EU. Climate change, sustainable energy, artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, Internet of Things, holistic approaches to healthcare and nutrition, autonomous vehicles smart cities of the future and circular economy, are the primal fields around which CERTH’s five (5) institutes are organized. Chemical Process & Energy Resources Institute – CPERI, Information Technologies Institute – ITI, Hellenic Institute of Transport – HIT, Institute of Applied Biosciences – INAB, and Bio-economy and Agro-Technology Institute – IBO, bring together more than 1100 people (engineers and scientists in their majority), in 6 regions and 7 cities. In the RES4LIVE project, CERTH participates with two of its Institutes, namely Institute for Bio-economy and Agri-technology (iBO) and Chemical Process & Energy Resources Institute (CPERI).
 Thanos Balafoutis Senior Researcher |
 Michael Moraitis Agricultural Engineer |
 Stamatia Voulgaraki Agricultural Engineer |
 Foteini Vandorou Management Engineer |
 Konstantinos Vaiopoulos Electrical & Computer Engineer |
iBO focuses on the scientific field of agri-technology and the broader scientific area of bio-systems engineering under the integration of multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary specializations and research units. At the same time, iBO’s research priorities include rational environmental management and sustainability assessment of bio-production activities, and the optimisation of human interactions within these activities, all in the direction of adopting the principles of the circular economy. iBO’s philosophy lays on a multiple-disciplinary approach toward the development and advancement of technologies dedicated to the bio-production systems domain, including crop production, livestock, and fisheries, under the external framework of economic development, welfare, and environmental impact alleviation, while in parallel it generates new technological paradigms shift for other domains.
 Panagiotis Grammelis Director |
 Konstantinos Atsonios Agricultural Engineer |
 Vasiliki Gavidou PhD Student |
 Dimitrios Fakis Mechanical Engineer |
CPERI is the main Greek organisation for the promotion of research and technological development, aiming at the improved and integrated exploitation of solid fuels and their by-products. The Institute targets to enhance the exploitation of the indigenous solid fuel supplies and upgrade the technological background in the Greek power sector. Its most important activities include: a) Promotion, implementation and improvement of clean coal combustion technologies (CCTs), b) Minimisation of pollutants including fly ash, by-products utilisation and CO2 capture and sequestration technologies, c) Optimisation of coal reserves exploration techniques and development of innovative environmental management methods, d) Biomass and/or waste co-combustion with lignite in existing combustion/gasification systems, e) Promotion and enhancement of gasification and hydrogen production technologies, f) Technology transfer from and to market operators and decision makers. Also, CERTH/CPERI has built a wide experience in CFD and ASPEN Plus/Dynamic modelling in the process systems design field in general.
CERTH is in charge of WP3 – Livestock farm energy flows assessment, smart control and simulation, mainly focusing on the assessment of on-farm energy demand and available renewable energy potential in EU agriculture with specific interest on the livestock subsector (iBO) and the development of a farm-specific numerical platform for energy simulations and operations optimization for calculating energy and resources flows (CPERI). Moreover, CERTH participates in various Project tasks such as the inventory of energy efficiency technologies, machinery and practices at farm level (WP2), the technical assessment and validation of the numerical platform (WP5), the case studies elaboration (WP6), and more.
Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO)
 Jarissa Maselyne Scientific Researcher |
 Petros Demissie Tegenaw Scientific Researcher |
Instituut Voor Landbouw-en Visserijonderzoek (ILVO) is an independent scientific research institute and service organization of the Flemish government that contributes to promoting a sustainable agriculture, fisheries and agri-food sector in Flanders, Belgium, Europe and in the world. The vision and mission of ILVO can be summarized as shown in the figure below. Out of ILVO’s 699 employees about 50.5 % are female. The transdisciplinary research themes of ILVO are executed with an organogram shown below. In terms of research infrastructure, ILVO has eight research sites in Merelbeke, Melle, and Oostende, Belgium. It also owns a total of 200 ha field trial land, 15,000 m² greenhouses, 20,000 m² animal housing, and 40 accredited laboratories. ILVO’s core values are working together, positivity, professionalism, proactivity, being an example and trust.
In WP3 of the RES4LIVE project, ILVO has a role as task leader to identify the effect of thermal comfort on livestock and their productivity. This task is now finished with the help of other project partners. As outcome a report was made on the effect of thermal comfort in livestock productivity, specifically in pigs, dairy cows and laying hens. A list of key performance indicators was derived to assess impact of thermal conditions on productivity, and gaps in current literature and challenges in practice are delineated. These indicators can be used to monitor the thermal comfort in livestock farms and include both measurements on the animals’ behaviour and on the productivity effects. The information collected in the report allows to design the precise indoor environmental control of the livestock buildings along with the energy smart control. It also brings useful information for the techno-economical selection and evaluation of the RES solutions, and for measuring the animals performance and behaviour during and after the RES4LIVE interventions. The main conclusions from the report are that more research needs to be done into the critical points concerning animals’ thermal comfort, existing techniques to manage the thermal environment need to be improved or new techniques need to be developed.
