ENEA is the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, a public body aimed at research, technological innovation and the provision of advanced services to enterprises, public administration and citizens in the sectors of energy, the environment and sustainable economic development.
Its focus sectors are energy technologies (renewable sources, energy storage, smart grids), nuclear fusion and nuclear safety (the Agency is the reference national research coordinator), energy efficiency (with the National Agency for Energy Efficiency), technologies for cultural heritage, seismic protection, food safety, pollution, life sciences, strategic raw materials, climate change. Among the emerging issues, ENEA supports the productive system as well as public authorities in the transition towards the circular economy and the resource efficiency. ENEA reinforces its efforts by collaborating with numerous national and international research bodies and institutions and participates in technological platforms and networks like EERA (European Energy Research Alliance), ECRA (European Climate Research Alliance), MEDENER, and Enterprise Europe Network, the largest network of services supporting competitiveness and innovation for SMEs. ENEA leads the South pole of the KIC EIT Raw Materials the world’s largest innovation community in the raw material sector.
ENEA activities in the field of renewable energy sources are mainly centred upon research, innovation, and technology transfer. The Agency also provides advanced services contributing to both decreasing CO2 emissions and the national energy dependence on fossil sources, and increasing Italy’s economic competitiveness. The principal research activities performed in ENEA in the field of photovoltaics are targeted at making this technology competitive for the national enterprises by focusing on process and product innovation applied to manufacturing and system technologies, and advanced services to enterprises. ENEA manages and implements methodologies, processes, and tools for environmental certification of processes (such as EMAS, ISO 14001 and Agenda 21) and products (the Ecolabel I, II and III). ENEA also provides technical support to public administrations and private industries in the implementation of European and national regulations. In addition ENEA evaluates the environmental, economic and social impact of products at macro (national or industrial sector level), meso- (new technology or large size industrial plant) and micro- (single product) scales. The Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) approach is used together with other analyses and tools in order to define scenarios and general equilibrium models. Software application tools are developed for LCA and eco-design. More than 1500 people are employed in the sector of renewable energy, energy efficiency and circular economy.
Role(s) / Task(s) in project
ENEA is WP leader for the dissemination and communication of PHOTORAMA results. The dissemination and communication of the project results and outputs are indispensable for optimising the value of the project and ensuring a broad impact of PHOTORAMA. Dissemination and Communication WP establishes the rules and guidelines on how the project will share its outcomes with target groups and networks, policy makers, relevant institutions, organisations, and stakeholders and how it will contribute to the overall dissemination strategy. Moreover ENEA leads the technical task of eco-design of the industrial process in WP4 for PV industry circular economy and design development of Innovative Full-recyclable PV Module.