Guanajuato, Gto., January 6, 2018.- With the support from the Federation, the Advanced Engineering Center in Energy, Use and Thermo-Economic Cost (INVERCOST) of the University of Guanajuato (UG) will build a mobile laboratory to diagnose, evaluate and solve complicated engineering problems that are present in the industry in the national level, even internationally.

The responsible for the project at UG is, Dr. Alejandro Zaleta Aguilar, explained that every action to optimize energy and natural resources can benefit sustainability, for example, if a thermoelectric central of approximately 300 MW loses 1% of their energetic efficiency due to decay, this translates into a million pesos loss per day. Hence, it is important to quickly solve this kind of flaws.

The mobile laboratory of energetic diagnosis of the University of Guanajuato will be a vehicle which will have high technology equipment, so, when an energy loss problem is reported, a group of experts from INVERCOST-UG can reach the place, make the diagnosis and solve the problem.

With a 20-year experience, who collaborates in such engineering center are the "diagnosticians" of complex flaws, "we solve the hardest cases in engineering in the country", assures Dr. Zaleta, and with this laboratory, they'll place UG as world class referent in the energetic sector.

The mobile laboratory is a unique project in Mexico, although there are similar initiatives in countries such as Spain, Germany and Ecuador; to carry out this project, the Department of Energy and the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACyT), will give $9 million 176 thousand pesos for its financing.

The idea emerged because when an energetic efficiency problem occurs, the engineers go and collect data, and must return to their work centers to process the information, and then return to the site where the problem is. Now, with this "technological ambulance", they can measure factors such as temperature, flux, quality of gas, water or electricity, and advanced computing in a single mobile unit to detect the causes and the flaws and propose solutions.

In this way, a valuation that took more than three months of work, with the mobile laboratory, they will shorten the time and could be done in few days, and this reduces the cost.

The range of application is high, it will allow to improve the energetic performance, reduce flaws, avoid million losses, and diminish the risks in the safety of workers and the population in general.

Although the mobile laboratory should start operating in May 2018, three evaluation projects are already scheduled: the thermoelectric Tula, a company of vitro ceramics and another agricultural. In these cases, there hasn't been any flaws, but they want to know how their energetic situation is and how they can save more energy, detailed Dr. Zaleta.

The services INVERCOST offers are charged as own income for the University of Guanajuato. Therefore, "is the fastest way to pay scholarships to students", assures the scholar, who highlighted that in such center, collaborates a valuable group of researchers and students of the Division of Engineering of Campus Irapuato – Salamanca of UG.

"We have infrastructure, laboratories, equipment, but the most valuable we have is the personnel, before the lose the talent to the industry, we hire them here", reaffirmed Dr. Alejandro Zaleta, who insists in the importance of using the potential of college students: "probably in the industry they would be sub-used, there us a lo of human talent here and sometimes they just want them as operators or administrators."

The team who is part of INVERCOST constitutes a referent in UG of the liaison between academy and business; in addition, it allows the work of students and professors to be reflected in tangible benefits for the industry and the society.

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