Terna today inaugurated the Terna Innovation Zone Torino, the new innovation hub of the group led by Giuseppina Di Foggia, the fourth after those launched in San Francisco, Tunis and the Adriatic region.
The announcement was made at the Terna Innovation Zone Forum, the event that brought together numerous Terna partners and representatives of the Italian and international innovation ecosystem in Turin, at the headquarters of the Collège des Ingénieurs Italia.
The new Turin hub is dedicated to the research and development of technological solutions to address the dual transition of the electricity, energy and digital grid, and was created with an eye in particular to Europe; Our continent is, in fact, the main basin of innovation in cleantech, the sector related to technologies for decarbonization. To accelerate the dual transition, the Terna Innovation Zone Torino adopts an open innovation model, collaborating with research centres, universities, start-ups and industrial partners throughout Europe.
The new innovation centre located in the Piedmontese capital is also close to some of Terna’s main technological laboratories such as the E-mobility Lab, where solutions are developed for the integration of electric vehicles into the grid, and the experimentation and training centres in Viverone and Rondissone, which test digital sensors, drones and robots for optimising the monitoring and maintenance of electrical infrastructure.
The Terna Innovation Zone Torino will also contribute to consolidating a European network through participation in international innovation programmes, including: Cross-industry Ecosystem, which involves large infrastructure companies in innovation projects for asset maintenance; Deep Tech Alliance, born from the collaboration of nineteen European incubators; TSO Innovation Alliance, which brings together eight of Europe’s largest electricity transmission system operators. The first meeting with which the TSO Innovation Alliance launched its innovation program took place yesterday, September 30, in Turin.
Furthermore, during the Terna Innovation Zone Forum on 1 October, the TSO Innovation Alliance launched the first joint open call, dedicated to the theme “Climate change and grid resilience”. The challenge aims to identify innovative startups and SMEs capable of proposing solutions to improve the resilience of electricity infrastructure in the face of increasingly frequent extreme weather events.
The forum also hosted a speech by Steve Westly, Managing Partner of The Westly Group, a Silicon Valley venture capital fund active mainly in the cleantech sector, and the presentation of the study “Cleantech for the grid: mapping innovation, challenges and opportunities” by Mind The Bridge , a partner at Terna, which offers an overview of emerging trends and investments in the electricity grid innovation sector.
The Terna Innovation Zone Torino is located within one of the most vibrant and advanced ecosystems on the European scene: the city, elected “European Capital of Innovation” at the Web Summit in Lisbon, boasts academic excellence such as the Polytechnic University of Turin, hosts events of international importance such as Italian Tech Week and leading realities such as OGR Torino, the largest Italian center dedicated to innovation and business acceleration.
With the opening of the Innovation Zone in Turin, Terna consolidates its strategy of developing outposts to play an active role in the innovation ecosystems in Italy, Europe and the world. The new hub represents a fundamental step in the group’s positioning as an aggregator of skills and technologies, supporting an increasingly sustainable, digital and resilient electricity system, capable of combining technological progress and social responsibility.
(Source: Terna press release)
