Environment: ENEA-Eni sign agreement for ecological energy transition

Rome, 23 February 2022 – The President of ENEA, Gilberto Dialuce, and the CEO of Eni, Claudio Descalzi, announce the signing of a Joint Cooperation Agreement (JCA) for the realisation of projects focused on decarbonisation and ecological energy transition.

The three years long agreement involves the development of prototypes, technologies and innovative processes, feasibility studies and scenario analysis, the exchange of skills and know-how and the promotion of joint initiatives for an overall value of over 8 million euros comprising the supply of personnel as well as the technical and financial resources of both parties.

The CEO of Eni, Claudio Descalzi, stated: “Thanks also to an ever-closer collaboration with the academic world and the research community, Eni is noticeably accelerating on its path of development and application of new clean energy sources. The connection between Eni and world-class research centres such as ENEA is increasingly strong and decisive to trace together the future of energy, as well as being a catalyst for skills and know-how to quickly deploy all available solutions. Our 2050 decarbonisation targets are imperative in terms of complete abatement of the net emissions of our industrial processes and products, and entail a primary and strategic role for R&D. It’s only through a common response and the application of all technologies available that we will be able to meet this great challenge.”

The President of ENEA, Gilberto Dialuce, declared: “This agreement allows to make our skills, infrastructures and capacity for innovation available to a leading international company like Eni on strategic issues such as decarbonisation, sustainability, and ecological energy transition through the implementation of concrete projects.

The agreement is part of our mission in applied research to develop partnerships with businesses by transferring technologies and advanced services for increased growth and competitiveness. In addition, this agreement strengthens the already existing collaboration with Eni in the ‘National Technological Energy Cluster’, in nuclear fusion and in other initiatives for the circular economy, concentrated solar technology and thermal accumulation”.

At an operational level, the agreement involves the areas of energy production from renewable sources and with low CO2 emissions, supercomputing, superconductivity and the circular

economy, including innovative processes for waste valorisation and for the production of biogas, biomethane and biochar, and it also involves the use of ENEA’s infrastructure and Research Centre’s labs.

For renewable sources, the agreement includes the identification of innovative uses for concentrated solar, evaluating the development of combined thermal generation and storage systems, the promotion of national and international partnerships for the design of industrial solutions and the joint participation in research and development projects for the realisation and validation of the prototypes.

With regard to supercomputing, the partnership will develop, among others, technologies and new generation hardwares for an innovative High-Performance Computing (HPC) system, with high efficiency both for calculation and energetically.

Regarding the superconductivity, ENEA and Eni will collaborate to the development of an innovative technology for the design and realisation of a Quench detection and prevention system (loss of superconducting characteristics) in a HTS superconducting magnet. In this sector, Eni and ENEA are already together in a strategic alliance for the realisation of a large scientific and technological centre on DTT fusion (Divertor Tokamak Test) which will be developed in the ENEA Research Centre in Frascati (Rome).

Press Contacts ENEA:

Cristina Corazza 328 98 94 279 cristina.corazza@enea.it

Roberto De Ritis 335 64 93 433 roberto.deritis@enea.it

ufficiostampa@enea.it

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