Inauguration of the CHESS Lab: Icam Toulouse Accelerates the Energy Transition

Research
20 Apr 2026

Around forty academic, industrial, and institutional stakeholders attended the inauguration of the CHESS Lab (Collaborative Hybrid Energy Systems Smart Lab) on the rooftop of Building L at Icam Toulouse on April 14th. This unique €110,000 project delivers an experimental platform dedicated to the energy transition for businesses.

An experimental platform funded and led by Icam Toulouse

Faced with the challenges of the energy transition, companies must design increasingly flexible, intelligent, and resilient electrical systems. It is with this ambition in mind that the CHESS Lab was born — an experimental platform dedicated to microgrids and smart grids.

Fully funded by the school, it serves a triple purpose: supporting applied research, accompanying industrial innovation, and training engineers to meet the energy challenges of the 21st century.

This exceptional infrastructure is the result of several months of intensive work led by Dr. Allal El Moubarek Bouzid (Icam Toulouse – LAAS-CNRS), platform manager, and his team of lecturers-researchers, doctoral students, and engineers with recognised expertise and international publications in leading journals and conferences.

The following partners are committed to this project:

• Academic partners: LAAS-CNRS, Laplace CNRS, IRT Saint Exupéry
• Companies: EDF, SPIE, VINCI, Schaeffler, ENERCOOP, Typhoon HIL France, ALTER Technology TÜV NORD France
• AD’OCC, Université de Toulouse

Why is CHESS Lab a unique tool?

A true strategic asset for industrial players in the energy sector, CHESS LAB is a high-quality R&D tool made available to businesses and researchers. The platform is built on a two-level architecture:

⚡ A Hybrid Experimentation Bench for testing solutions under real operating conditions:

• Photovoltaic and wind energy production
• Multi-technology storage (lithium & AGM)
• Direct interaction with the electrical grid
• Connected or islanded operation

🖥 An Advanced Research & Rapid Prototyping Bench (RCP/HIL) for rapidly exploring, testing, and validating innovative concepts:

• Real-time simulation (HIL)
• Rapid control prototyping (RCP)
• Over ten distributed generators
• Reconfigurable networks (radial, loop, meshed)

CHESS LAB thus covers the full spectrum of challenges facing modern energy systems and enables:

• Supporting research and innovation around sustainable energy systems
• Developing new architectures for future electrical grids
• Providing a high-level experimental infrastructure to validate microgrid and smart grid concepts

Spotlight on the Icam Toulouse Meeting #4 — Going Further!

Following the inauguration of the CHESS Lab platform, Icam Toulouse invited attendees to continue discussions on the theme Networks of the Future: Energy Storage and Management, as part of its Icam Toulouse Meeting #4, coordinated by Dr. Allal Bouzid and facilitated by Corinne Alonso, University Professor and researcher at LAAS-CNRS.

This exceptional roundtable, introduced by Jean-Denis Falise, Director of Icam Toulouse, explored a crucial question: how can we reconcile energy sustainability, societal needs, and technical constraints — in a context shaped by climate urgency, pressure on natural resources, and rapid technological change?

Several speakers from research, industry, and local government shared their perspectives and expertise:

• Prof. Bruno Estibals (Researcher, LAAS-CNRS): Expert in Smart Grids and microgrids
• Joël Dedieu (Lecturer at the EEA Department, Université de Toulouse): Specialist in advanced control systems and electrical network modelling
• Thomas Vallejo (Territorial & Innovation Project Officer, EDF Occitanie): Key player in the regional energy transition
• Philippe Salvado (Commissioning Engineer, SPIE Industrie): Expert in the deployment of smart energy infrastructure

The Icam Toulouse Meetings are available as replays on the Icam YouTube channel.