Enagás has held a new edition of the ‘Enagás Innovation Day’ at its Corporate University in Madrid, where three innovative solutions have been selected to advance in addressing technological challenges related to energy infrastructures. The event brought together representatives from technological and scientific centres, universities, companies, and other agents of the innovation ecosystem to share knowledge and seek technological solutions applicable to current and future challenges of energy infrastructures.
The solutions have been developed as part of the ‘Technological-Digital Challenge 2026’, in which twelve multidisciplinary teams, composed of professionals from Enagás, other companies, technological centres, and universities, have worked on three challenges: the intelligent digitalisation of underground storage, the prediction and monitoring of fugitive methane emissions, and the predictive integrity of the future hydrogen transport network.
The CEO of Enagás, Arturo Gonzalo, opened the meeting alongside the President of the Spanish Federation of Technological Centres (Fedit), Managing Director of ITI, a technological centre specialised in ICT, and National Innovation Award 2026, Laura Olcina. During his speech, Arturo Gonzalo emphasised that “innovation and technological development will be crucial for the energy transition, decarbonisation, and the fight against climate change.” The CEO of Enagás stated that “we are going to create a great opportunity for Europe and for Spain: we have the capacity to become the great European hub of green molecules. To achieve this, accelerating industrial scale in large solutions is urgent.”
Twelve multidisciplinary teams have worked on three technological challenges during the ‘Enagás Innovation Day’, held at the Enagás Corporate University in Madrid.
For her part, Laura Olcina highlighted that “the true value of innovation appears when knowledge turns into solutions that companies can apply. That is precisely the role of technological centres: to develop and validate technologies, reducing the risks of their adoption and accelerating their arrival in industry.”
In this regard, Olcina has emphasised the collaboration with companies like Enagás, stating that “sharing challenges and combining capabilities allows us to move towards solutions that we could hardly develop separately.”
The day addressed the role of innovation and technology as levers to boost industrial competitiveness and energy autonomy and to advance in decarbonisation. Among other areas, technologies linked to renewable hydrogen, artificial intelligence, digitalisation, predictive models, and future digital twins have been analysed.
Innovation applied to three key technological challenges
The twelve teams have worked to provide solutions to three operational and business challenges. The work has focused on solutions with application potential that leverage digitalisation and advanced data analysis to improve anticipation capabilities and enhance the efficiency, reliability, and safety of infrastructures.
The first challenge focused on the intelligent digitalisation of underground storage, aiming to advance towards an integrated digital environment capable of connecting technical, operational, geological, and integrity information, automating certain processes, and facilitating data analysis and decision-making. The winning proposal was from Pandora 360, an integrated, interoperable, and scalable digital platform that connects and contextualises operational, technical, and documentary information currently distributed across different systems. It allows for process and reporting automation, generates indicators and alerts, and progressively incorporates advanced analytics and AI to improve asset management and decision-making at Enagás.
The second challenge addressed emission reductions, through new tools that allow relating them to real operating conditions, detecting possible deviations early, and prioritising mitigation actions. The selected proposal was from MIP, an intelligent platform for predictive emission management that combines continuous monitoring through cameras, operational and meteorological variables, and AI models. It allows for the detection and quantification of emissions, identification of their possible causes, anticipation of their evolution, and prioritisation of maintenance and LDAR actions according to their risk.
The winning proposals have addressed the intelligent digitisation of underground storage, the reduction of emissions, and the predictive maintenance of the future hydrogen transport network.
The third challenge focused on the predictive integrity of the future hydrogen transport network, exploring solutions that allow for the anticipation and monitoring of asset maintenance through technologies such as sensors, non-intrusive inspection, predictive models, artificial intelligence, and future digital twins of integrity. In this case, the winning solution was from VIGÍA-H2, which combines a hybrid digital twin, specific damage models for hydrogen, relocatable sensors, and AI. Additionally, it generates dynamic maps of critical points to anticipate degradation, estimate the remaining life of components, and guide inspections and maintenance.
The CEO of Enagás, Arturo Gonzalo, has emphasised that “innovation and technological development will be crucial for the energy transition, decarbonisation, and the fight against climate change
From research to industrial application
The meeting also provided insights into three successful R&D&i cases related to the energy transition. First, GHOST, which employs artificial intelligence and digital twins to anticipate risks in energy infrastructures and was the winning proposal of the Technological Challenge promoted by Enagás as part of meetechSpain 2025, organised by FEDIT.
Secondly, GREENH2-CM, focused on research and technological development in green hydrogen and fuel cells; and lastly, digHy, a digital platform aimed at improving the design and operation of renewable hydrogen projects.
The successful cases were presented, respectively, by the Innovation and Technological Development Manager of Enagás, Igor Pagazaurtundua; by the Contracted Doctor Professor at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Rafael D'Amore; and by the Co-founder and CEO of digHy, Brais Armiño.
The day included the round table ‘From challenges to solutions: innovation with impact’, featuring the Vice-Rector for Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Transfer at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Juan Manuel Muñoz Guijosa; the General Director of CIRCE, Andrés Llombart; and the Chief Commercial Officer of Telespazio Ibérica, Álex Oscoz. It was moderated by the General Director of Engineering, Technology, and Digitalisation at Enagás, Susana de Pablo. During the round table, the experts agreed that “innovation requires coordination, collaboration, and the integration of different perspectives and capabilities.” They also highlighted that for innovation to have a real impact, it is essential that “projects are scalable and translate into tangible value for both companies and society.”
Enagás has also announced a new call for ‘Ingenia Energy’, its open innovation and intrapreneurship programme launched in 2015, with updates to promote the development of innovative projects and disruptive ideas, which will now become a permanently open initiative.
An ecosystem for sharing knowledge
In this context, the Hydrogen Technological Observatory, which Enagás launched in 2024 as a space to share technical knowledge, already has 116 leading partners from across the hydrogen value chain.
In conclusion, Susana de Pablo emphasised “the importance of generating new knowledge, developing new models, and enhancing talent, as well as anticipating the needs of the industry and directing innovation towards the challenges of the future.” In this regard, she highlighted the capabilities of technological centres and companies, and the need to leverage them through collaboration to address the major challenges ahead.
