Innovation and Technology
Innovation
Terna implemented an interactive web platform that is unique in Italy for monitoring the progress of the major electricity infrastructures. A constantly updated observatory on the projects already authorized, being implemented or blocked due to bureaucratic delays. An innovative tool, that is transparent and easily accessible to all stakeholders, to follow the various phases of the projects thanks to detailed information and maps that include over 250 pages and 200 charts, a search engine for the timely update of contents and a dynamic database with double cross data search.
Terna has planned this platform to support, also through web communication, the development of one of the most important infrastructures in the country: the national electricity transmission grid, the large energy highway on which every year over 320 billion kWh energy are transferred.
To learn about the status of Terna's projects, click here.
Technology
The contest "Pylons of the future", launched by Terna to plan and design new HV pylons, stands to witness the Company's environmental culture, its awareness of the consequences of placing industrial elements into natural landscapes and its willingness to reduce as much as possible the impact of these objects.
To participate in the contest, the designers had to comply with mandatory technical requirements such as the pylons being structurally functional since they are intended for transferring HV electricity. The participants had to combine creativity with high flexibility in their use, industrial feasibility and easy access for grid maintenance activity. No restrictions were however placed for their design and building.
The contest winner was the project by architect Hugh Dutton from the Studio Rosental: during 2010, the preliminary study for their engineering began. The second place went to the Frigerio group and third to the Studio Giugiaro.
With its 750 million euros of investments, the SA.PE.I. cable (Sardinia-mainland) is the most important electricity infrastructure ever built in Italy. SA.PE.I.'s numbers are record-breaking: the cable was laid at 1,640 meters of depth, the deepest in the world; its 435 km in length make it the longest 1,000 MW submarine cable in the world.
It is also the most sustainable submarine cable, thanks to the no-impact and innovative cable laying methods used to protect the marine fauna and ecosystems. The SA.PE.I. is record-breaking nationally also for the two largest converting power stations in Italy: in Latina, Lazio and in Fiumesanto, Sardinia. Once completed, with its double 500 kV DC submarine cable, the SA.PE.I. will ensure a capacity of 1,000 megawatt.
For more information on the record-breaking cable, click here!
These are designer pylons used for the first time in the electricity world. Winners of the first international contest "Supports for the environment", launched by Terna, these new supports were designed by Sir Norman Foster, the British architect and designer who is among the main protagonists of high-tech architecture. By using the Foster pylons that blend aesthetics with technological innovation, the electricity sector that is characterized by an essentially technical setup, opened up to design.
Terna has already installed 10 Foster pylons in Tuscany, along the "Tavarnuzze-Santa Barbara" HV line, near the Scandicci highway exit. The R&D objective in an infrastructural sector such as that of the HV grid, in the countryside and in urban areas, includes installing throughout the territory plants and systems that are high-tech and aesthetically pleasing for a more harmonized interaction with the Italian landscape.
Single-pole tubular supports represent an important innovation in the implementation of HV and EHV electricity lines. Their compact solution ensures the least occupation of land among all possible solutions for overhead electricity lines.
Single-pole pylons allow reducing the land occupied at their base (5 sq m compared to 150 sq m for traditional truncated-pyramid pylons, for a 380 kV voltage); lower visual impact, capable of reducing the environmental impact of the new lines in areas having a particular landscape interest.
Tubular pylons have already been used for some time for HV lines, from the 132 kV grid upgrading in Val d'Ossola Sud, to the single-pole pylons installed on the "Laino – Rizziconi" line (in the Parco del Pollino), in the "San Fiorano – Robbia" line (in the Parco dell'Adamello), in the "Chignolo Po - Maleo" line, in Lombardy, in the "Sorgente - Rizziconi" line (between Sicily and Calabria) and "Trino - Lacchiarella" line (between Piedmont and Lombardy.