From Big Data for US wind farms to automated and remote-controlled substations in Romania and soon also in 5 Latin American countries, to devices for monitoring and analyzing household consumption in Italy. Technological innovation has entered almost forcefully into the entire energy supply chain, and the Enel Group's development in the various countries in which it operates extensively demonstrates how this transformation results into greater efficiency in energy generation, distribution and consumption.
Environmental efficiency enhancement and new technologies are an essential combination in Enel's thermoelectric plant management. As many as 99 plants are installed in Europe and the Americas, whose competitiveness is based on domes built to protect the stored coal and cutting-edge systems for waste water reuse, fabric filters used to cut dust emissions and drones for internal boiler inspection. The search for an increasing economic and environmental sustainability for traditional generation plants is the basis for a path to efficiency that draws on the best practices applied by Enel across the world, while also – as in Italy's Futur-e project – involves a review of the Group's production assets.
Clean and distributed energy today result in a greater amount of electricity from renewable sources. Following Enel Green Power's geographical and technological growth, the Group operates more than 1100 green plants, mostly wind and solar, which help increase Enel's zero-emission generation share (presently at 47%). EGP's renewables are becoming increasingly competitive thanks to constant innovation that makes it possible to enhance their efficiency and the availability of its production, making the latter increasingly programmable. Energy storage projects to be integrated into solar PV fields and wind farms, the development of new technologies such as marine energy or hybridization between two or more sources – implemented at a number of EGP plants in Italy and the United States – are examples of a development that becomes more efficient thanks to technology and even includes the use of Big Data to improve plant management and maintenance.
Service quality and efficient consumption are at both ends of a value supply chain that stretches along Enel's distribution networks: over 1.85 million km of high, medium and low voltage electricity lines, working in nine countries, which are undergoing an intense automation and digital transformation process aimed at ensuring secure supplies to customers, full renewable source integration and an evolution of the distribution system towards a smart energy future. Electricity grids, which link generation plants and consumers, are the means of also introducing efficiency in daily energy use thanks to the digitization of service and tools that constantly increase the active and responsible role of consumers within the new energy system, which is based on exchanges and is sustainable and smart.