The company as a stakeholder

AWARDS IN THE FIELD OF INNOVATION

Acea 's commitment to innovation has been recognised by impor- tant institutional initiatives.

Acea won the SMAU 2021 Innovation Award with the “Lean Pro- curement for innovative start-ups and SMEs”, a new subsidised model to engage innovative start-ups and SMEs that calls for a dedicated procurement process that overcomes the obstacles of traditional processes. In December, GORI won the Innovation Award at SMAU Naples, with the pro- ject "Smart Metering. Use of IoT technology in Integrated Water Services management”.

Finally, at Ecomondo 2021 Acea won the ecohitech Award with the PASO project "for the value of a solution concerning the aspects of maintenance and intelligent monitoring of critical infrastructure for energy efficiency".

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AT ACEA SPA

In 2021, the Innovation unit of Acea SpA's Technology & Solutions Function with the involvement of all the company's entities and external start-ups, launched and/or realised numerous experiments and initiatives for the innovation and digitalisation of services, including:

• the implementation of SIDE, the innovative project, developed in collaboration with Areti and the startup BlueTensor, which uses Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision algorithms ap- plied to images of secondary substations to uniquely identify and catalogue substation components;

• the launch of the "OCR" experiment, in collaboration with Acea Energia, to simplify the management of utilities by customers;

• the development, in cooperation with Acea Ato 2, of the DepurArt App usable by all citizens visiting some of the major purification plants, which guides them with audio descriptions, photos and videos, along the wastewater treatment cycle; in 2021 the project was developed at the Fregene plant;

• the testing of a system of preventive detection of malfunctions or disturbances on Rome's public lighting network, such as interference caused by vegetation, using satellite images and artificial intelligence, carried out in synergy with Areti;

• the project for the usage of sensors and development of artificial intelligence algorithms in order to perform predictive maintenance and ensure real-time monitoring of values of interest at the Scafati water purification plant, developed with Acea Elabori and GORI and in collaboration with the startup Ammagamma.

• the creation of a new navigable web bill for water;

• the digitalisation of the services offered to citizens with the consolidation of the digital counter and the launch of the first Waidy Points in the territory managed by Acea Ato 2;

• the launch of the project for the evolution of the IT system for customer management (CRM), which provides for the complete redesign of commercial processes on the new SalesForce tool, according to the principles of customer centricity, complete digitalisation, flexibility and eectiveness drivers. The pro- ject will continue over the next two years with the progressive re-engineering of all business processes;

• the consolidation of the Waidy Management System project, which envisages the creation of an IT platform to support decisions for the core water business, in order to protect the water resource and reduce losses, improve the quality of the resource, and promote measures in favour of environmental sustainability;

• the launch of the SAP Asset Management project, which en- visages the evolution of the app used by technicians within the workforce management model, by improving the user interface and the complete digitalisation of operational activities.

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN THE ENERGY AREA COMMERCIAL AND TRADING

In 2021, Acea Innovation was very active in the electric mobility area. It has further developed the Charging Point Operator plat- form, integrating it in interoperability with 3 EMSP (E-Mobility Service Provider) and created the Acea Energia EMSP (Electric Mobility Service Provider) platform, which launched in April.

As part of its activities in the sale of electricity and gas commodities and non-commodity services, Acea Energia has launched or implemented the following innovative projects:

• the first releases of the E2CRM digital transformation programme, which involved adopting the SalesForce CRM platform, enabling all processes to be implemented digitally, with a consequent reduction in contacts through traditional channels and paper-based flows; developing new functions on the portal reserved for customers in the Large&Business segment; activating a new funnel that makes customers converge towards the Acea.it website, in line with the latest digital developments; creating new reporting models and implementing tracking on all sales and post-sales processes;
• the launch of the 'digital consultancy' channel on the Genesys platform, a new way of interacting with customers that does not require the physical exchange of documents;
• implementation of PoC (Proof of Concept) to verify the application of artificial intelligence (AI) model mechanisms in the claims classification phase. The results of the PoC showed that large-scale implementation, planned for 2022, could increase the accuracy of complaint classification, with economies insofar as resources are concerned;
• the start of the implementation project based on the datalake, with the release of the first reports on the Qclik platform, which allowed an improvement in data monitoring aimed at preventing critical issues for customers and operations;
• the completion of technical implementations for the activation of application-to-application communications with third parties where required (IIS, Distributors, etc.). This reduces the processing times of requests and in the number of sta involved in handling cases.

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN THE ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE AREA

In 2021, Areti launched, continued or concluded several innovative projects as part of its electricity distribution activities, including:

• the PlatOne project, which was financed by the European Community and was coordinated by the company. This project involves 12 partners from Germany, Belgium, Greece and Italy and experiments with innovative management of distribution networks through the direct involvement of end customers. Electricity service interruptions are resolved by a coordinated change in consumption and/or production of customers who are connected to the portion of the network aected by the event. The variations of individual customers are small and can be ag- gregated by a market participant (Aggregator) and organised into oers according to a predefined scheme. The most convenient oers that are technically compatible with the limitations posed by the infrastructure, are activated and monitored by a device, developed by Areti, that receives the Distributor's commands, transfers them to the actuators and interfaces with the new gen- eration meter to read the measurement data in real time. The measurement data are then used to calculate the remuneration to be received by the customer for the service provided;

• the POLEDRIC project, for the construction of an intelligent public lighting pole in the city of Rome, is able to improve the public lighting service (through sensors and the use of advanced technologies) while enabling additional environmental, security and communication services (environmental sensors, traffic and parking monitoring sensors, video surveillance and video analysis services, etc.), from a smart city perspective. At the end of 2021, the partnership tender was concluded;

• The G.I.M.M.I. project (Massive and Targeted Infrastructure Inspection Management), to reduce undiscovered faults on overhead lines and asset monitoring, through periodic analysis of satellite images and targeted drone inspections;

• the 'AUTONOMOUS' project, to reduce the incidence of faults in the primary substation, by means of preventive inspections either autonomously or remotely guided by a UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle) drone. In 2021, the testing of the solution continued with the setting up of a recharging box in which the drone, at the end of the mission, can recover and re- charge itself, and the data collection and management platform was created, which is necessary for the integration of the new solution in the current inspection processes;

• the Automa per Selezione Guasto in TLC [Automated Fault Selection in TLC] project, aimed at supporting and automating human operations by means of Robotic Process Automation techniques for remote fault selection on the network. During the year, a demonstrator project was implemented to perform fault selection on a portion of a real network, using logic developed in matlab which, thanks to innovative Robotic Process Automation techniques, interacted with the SCADA system. The demonstrator project made it possible to verify the validity of the approach and to define the integration solution when fully operational;

• the project Automation of Low Voltage Lines, aimed at enabling remote control and automating the reclosure of low voltage lines from the secondary substation on disconnection for excess power;

• the Bilateral LTE Automation project, which involves the implementation of a field automation solution to select the fault line and uses the 4G network to make the switches along the line communicate. During 2021, development and testing of the solution was completed and mass deployment in the field began. The project also included the development of a central device management platform for the remote management of peripheral Industrial IoT devices that support the other remote and service monitoring solutions for the secondary cabin;

• a pilot project for the application of "IoT Internet of Things" technologies to secondary substations, with the aim of collecting and analysing measurements of environmental parameters and electrical quantities from the low-voltage network, to improve plant maintenance and energy loss control. Testing of the prototype on four secondary substations was completed in 2021.

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN THE WATER AREA

With the aim of improving operational performance carried out in collaboration with Acea Elabori, Acea Ato 2 conducted research activities and technological-digital innovation on:

• the satellite radar technique for remote monitoring Intasar Functional monitoring of the stability of elevated structures on the ground (e.g. tanks) with specially designed reflectors to improve accuracy and resolution;
• monitoring of emerging organic micropollutants (EOM) and endocrine disruptors in the wastewater of medium- to large- sized plants, selected according to process scheme and territo- rial location; monitoring activities continued at the CoBIS and Roma Sud plants and those of the Tiber River relating to envi- ronmental risk assessment and analysis;
• the advanced sensichips sensors, completing in-depth tests with impedance methodology in different test modes (batch tests in wastewater);
• ultrasound, completing the VTA GSD technology trial that be- gan in 2020, to assess achievable performance in sewage sludge disintegration pretreatment;
• the study on the "SARS Virus CoV 2 carried out with the Isti- tuto Superiore di Sanità, concerning the circulation of the virus in waste water with participation in the SARI circuit, as ST3 lab- oratory, validated from sampling up to the quantitative results;
• characterisation of the floating residue from the desanding/ de-oiling process of urban wastewater and assessment of the best treatment technologies; a number of plants deemed suit- able for carrying out the study were selected and the qualitative and quantitative monitoring phase continued;
• full-scale experimentation of Taron technology at the Santa Fumia wastewater treatment plant, which uses a dynamic rotat- ing disc filtration system that combines secondary sedimenta- tion and tertiary filtration in a single step, optimising the waste- water treatment process;
• lysis technologies for optimising biogas/biomethane produc- tion, with the launch of an experimental study to increase biogas production from anaerobic digestion plants at some purification

With regard to innovation applied to the management of water distribution networks new generation techniques - satellite, noise recorder and fibre optics - were tested for hidden leak detection (Noise Logger and Satellite Radar Interferometry).

For the waste water purification the main projects carried out by Acea Ato 2 concerned:

• the installation of the new ozonolysis station for sludge reduc- tion at the Ostia plant, in view of the excellent results already obtained with the testing of the system;
• The optimisation of the anaerobic sludge digestion compart- ments, activated at some of the managed treatment plants, in- cluding in relation to the biomethanisation power of the sludge (primary, secondary, etc.);
• the commissioning of the thermal dryer at the Ostia water treatment plant;
• the renovation of the Fregene purification plant, where the DepurArt project was developed in collaboration with the Inno- vation unit of Acea SpA's Technology & Solutions function (see also the dedicated box - Research and innovation in Acea SpA).

Satellite monitoring of water resources continued in protected areas, for detecting morphological variations (new constructions, earthworks, etc.) followed by the relevant verification activities.

During 2021, the company designed, created and commissioned an in- novative experimental plant for potable water that can remove arsenic. In addition, with reference to forecasting the availability of water resources, Acea Ato 2 has implemented a machine-learning algo- rithm based on the random forest technique to identify meteoro- logical proxies (temperature and/or precipitation) or management proxies (volumes) correlated to the variability of the state of pres- ervation of the resource, with reference to the different collection sources (springs, well fields, etc.).

With the support of a specialist firm, Acea Ato 5 conducted an en- ergy analysis on one of the main well fields managed and imple- mented a corrective action to significantly reduce the plant's ener- gy consumption. A predictive maintenance project was launched involving some key assets for the management of water systems (external electric pumps in lifting stations) and sewage (compres- sors), with the installation of wireless sensors capable of carrying out real-time analysis to prevent irreparable breakdowns of the moni- tored assets and the consequent plant stoppages.

AdF has carried out:

• the completion of the experimental Augmented Reality pro- ject, in coordination with Acea Innovation, to approach the new technology on field processes and empower the frontline workforce;
• massive remote reading of meters across the territory through drive-by and walk-by reading, covering around 50% of the in- stalled base of meters. In addition, an analysis platform (NEX- Tex) has been developed as part of an internal project to con- trol and monitor data from remote This platform allows the analysis of field measurement information and instrument alarms, thus enabling effective asset management and detailed control of water consumption;
• the completion of a PoC aimed at defining a platform for man- aging and integrating data from smart meters, both drive-by and nbIOT, and no-meter sensors, with the aim of creating a data hub, performing advanced management of events and alarms and feeding analytics systems;
• the construction of a centralised platform for the treatment of sludge from sewage treatment plants by means of thermo- chemical

As part of the protection of water resources effort, experimentation continued on various technologies concerning network efficiency, satellite monitoring of leaks, a predictive methodology (Rezatec al- gorithm) was implemented on the Grosseto municipal network was implemented aimed at prioritising interventions and pre-locating leaks which, on the basis of historical, geomorphologic and hydrau- lic data of the aqueduct graph, identifies the areas at greater risk of rupture; the installation of a system of multi-correlator geophones was also started with the same objective of promptly and accurately identifying leaks.

Finally, within the framework of internal projects implemented in agile mode, AdF has developed two dashboards integrated with SCADA systems and analytics tools, for monitoring water requirements, planning water production, creating consumption forecast scenarios using predictive algorithms, and for monitoring the elec- tricity budget and the energy performance of the main plants.

GORI continued its implementation of IoT technologies and ad- vanced sensor technology for environmental protection, with the installation of 300 sensors and remote monitoring of wastewater flood drains.

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN ENGINEERING AND SERVICES

n 2021, in collaboration with the Technology& Solutions Function of Acea SpA and the start-up BeamDigital, Acea Elabori carried out experimentation on the Safety Check project, for the remote mon- itoring of the safety conditions of the personnel working at the sites. Implementation continued of the 'Master Reclamation' project, a data retrieval system able to retrieve customer master data, using machine learning and artificial intelligence, and automate internal data quality processes.

With reference to business process innovation in 2021, Acea Elabori's achievement of BIM (Building Information Modelling) certification for engineering design is of particular note. The BIM methodology employs intelligent digital models throughout all phases of a project’s life cycle and works on seven dimensions, visualising not only progress and costs, but also the sustainability of the project and encouraging the implementation of choices oriented towards a positive impact on the environment.

Numerous other projects have been carried out by Acea Elabori for Group companies.

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN THE ENVIRONMENT AREA

In 2021, the following research and innovation activities carried out by the Environment business are worth mentioning:

• the completion of experimental activities for the development of a plant solution aimed at recovering sodium bicarbonate and calcium chloride dihydrate (reaction by-products) from the treatment of Residual Sodium Carbonate (RSC), deriving from the neutralisation phase of the acid fumes produced by the waste-to-energy plants, currently under contract, and the start of activities to define the industrial scale-up;
• The completion of experimental activities for the treatment of fly-ash and bottom-ash for the recovery of the inert fraction present and treatment for the reduction of hazardous characteristics, and initiation of activities to define the industrial scaleup;
• the filing of the application for an experimental authorisation for the plasmix treatment pilot plant. The plant is part of a much larger project to sustainably recover mixed plastics (plasmix) and transform them, through the GASIFORMINGTM process, into pure methanol that can be sold on the market. The project im- plements circularity: it recovers material from waste destined for landfill or waste-to-energy, vertically integrates the plastics chain, and produces methanol from a renewable source.