Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development
Energy: Intelligent photovoltaic, ENEA and TeaTek together in a 4.6 million euro project
Optimizing the energy generation of photovoltaic systems to increase yields and reduce losses thanks to artificial intelligence is the target of the project MARTA, funded with 4.6 million euro by the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy as part of the innovation agreement.[1]
The project, the only one of its kind at national level, foresees the creation of a flexible and scalable IT platform for monitoring and managing photovoltaic plants by ENEA and TeaTek spa, an international group specializing in photovoltaic plants. Specific IoT devices will also be created to be applied to the panels, whose information will allow to develop innovative artificial intelligence algorithms aimed at ensuring maximum energy generation and avoiding losses which can even exceed 40%.
This platform is mainly addressed to the operators of large plants, but it will also be accessible by renewable energy communities (CERs) and, through a simple free app, by citizens who own small plants.
“The technology to generate electricity with photovoltaics is now mature and well established. Research must mainly work to facilitate its diffusion and improve its management and transmission both in the case of small-medium users and large production plants. Therefore the collaboration between public and private research is crucial, like TeaTek which actively operates in the international reference market", pointed out Girolamo Di Francia, head of the ENEA Laboratory for the Development of Photovoltaic and Sensor Applications, the main reference for the research activity of the MARTA project.
“Photovoltaic systems will be increasingly widespread in the coming years, but users need to be equipped with a simple management tool capable of making it truly efficient. This applies to both new and older plants. The close collaboration with ENEA allows our company to compete with the most innovative technologies, and it is an exhilarating challenge to be able to work on a product which, we hope, starting from Italy, will arrive on the global market. The green light to the project was also possible thanks to the support of Sef as advisor and of the professionals of the Mazzei studio", said Felice Granisso, CEO of the TeaTek group.