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SAMPLE will be developed with the support of the Department for Information Technology, Bioengineering, Robotics and System Engineering (DIBRIS) of the University of Genoa

MAPS, an innovative digital transformationSME listed on AIM Italia, algoWatt, a GreenTech Solutions Company listed on the MTA market, and Acea Produzione, a company of the ACEA Group operating in the business of power generation from photovoltaic plants, jointly announce their success on the Start 4.0 tender with the SAMPLE project: a platform for the management and resilience of the so-called critical infrastructures for power generation from photovoltaic system, with an overall value of around 450 thousand Euro.

The 2020 tender for “grants for industrial Research & Development in the field of enabling 4.0 technologies for the security of critical infrastructure” was launched by the  Start 4.0 Skill Center of the Italian Ministry for Economic Development, which lists 39 key private and public players. In line with the directives of the Italian National Plan (PNRR), the tender financed three high value added projects on enabling technologies: ANCHOR and A4S, focused on the development of enabling technologies in the domain of ports, particularly for infrastructure security and worker safety, and SAMPLE, concentrated on the energy transition.

The SAMPLE project

SAMPLE aims to research, develop and validate a solution for the management and resilience of critical infrastructure dedicated to power generation from Non-programmable Renewable Sources (NPRS), with special reference to generation from photovoltaic plants and their interconnection with the electric grid. It provides practical support to our country's energy transition, sustaining the solar power industry to monitor, prevent and avoid faults or degradation issues that may reduce energy production and create risks for service quality and continuity.

A predictive management strategy implies a strategic approach to maximize asset operations, increasing a plant's technical lifespan by 20%, and reducing photovoltaic assets maintenance costs by as much as 10%. The management and resilience solution ensures quality and continuity of service using advanced diagnostic and prognostic techniques to improve generation, identifying anomalies and preventing any fault in the system. The solution is integrated in the Operation & Maintenance and the Asset Supervision systems, improving both products and technologies for businesses involved and for customers who manage generation plants.

The platform is based on the collection and smart aggregation of data from a variety of sources, and on the development of simulations of the system's expected behavior integrated with drone-based imaging systems for the physical monitoring of the plants. The platform's effectiveness will be validated in a simulated environment on the basis of observations and historical data on the plants of the “Acea Produzione infrastructural node and the UNIGE's Savona Campus” (Smart Polygeneration Microgrid e Smart Building, energy infrastructural node).

The partners

MAPS is an innovative SME operating in the domain of digital transformation. It develops and sells software for Big Data analysis, enabling customers to manage and analyze large amounts of data and information, supporting their strategy and operations in the development of new business models. MAPS will consolidate its ROSE (Real-Time Operational Smartgrid for Europe) platform, adding a Predictive Maintenance component to its Energy Management, also developing more traditional components for an electric distribution grid. Therefore, ROSE can be marketed to System Operators but also in the wider market for distributed energy resources (DERMS) and virtual aggregators, integrating it with information on the plants' health and thus earning an edge against its competitors.

algoWatt is a business leader in the development of energy solutions and systems, particularly in the fields of Power Generation, Transmission/Distribution, Billing & Trading, Energy Efficiency, Smart Grid, and O&M services for large FV plants. The company also develops software for distributed generation, especially with NPRS. It is skilled in the development of Energy Management Systems that can monitor and optimize the working of decentralized generation/consumption units, and forecasting systems for the analysis of short/medium term electrical loads. New products are developed through the close collaboration of the Research& Innovation and the Energy divisions. algoWatt plans to use the results from SAMPLE in two ways: as a manager of third-party plants, a managed power base exceeding 60MWp will improve the quality of its service and competitive positioning; as an owner of 8 photovoltaic plants, with an installed capacity of 7.6 MWp, it will utilize SAMPLE in the management and maintenance of its own infrastructure for improved continuity in its operations and optimized maintenance expenditure.

Acea Produzione is the ACEA Group business operating in Electricity Generation, mainly from renewable sources, and photovoltaic in particular.  The company will bring to the table its skills and experience in the renewable field, with a view to developing new technologies for improved plant resilience and efficiency.

UNIGE joined the project through its DIBRIS unit (Savona Campus) which has been engaged in sustainable energy system research for the last 10 years. DIBRIS has worked on European, national and local projects which enabled the installation of smart grid and micro grid research infrastructures (codified both locally and nationally) as well as the development of energy management systems for sustainable districts. With SAMPLE, DIBRIS will launch work on predictive management of existing plants.