focus on batteries, hydrogen and solar – Corriere.it

Premise: for the ecological transition one cannot but start from the costs. How much to spend to bring electricity from renewable sources to households and businesses without excessive incentives which are then included in the bill as system charges? Lco is an acronym for levelized cost of electricity. That is, the comparison of investments (and management costs) between the various technologies and raw materials in electricity generation. Now solar and wind are even cheaper than other sources after years of maxi-subsidies.

Enea, the public agency employed by the ministry, takes a step further by turning into a industrial policy observatory on energy. I will create a virtual super-laboratory that exploits the potential of supercalculation and artificial intelligence for research on innovative materials for renewable energy plants. This activity is part of a European project that counts on funding of 4.5 million from the Ministry for Ecological Transition. The laboratory will be able to accelerate the process of analyzing experimental data, to identify the most suitable materials and technological solutions for application in the energy field. It will consist of four components: a computational infrastructure based on the Enea Cresco6 supercomputer and three dedicated experimental infrastructures batteries, electrolysers for the production of green hydrogen and photovoltaics. To achieve this, he will collaborate with the Cnr, the Italian Institute of Technology, which will provide laboratories and experimental and computational infrastructures.

In the case of batteries, the lines of activity will concern the new materials for the electrodes (cathode and anode) and for the electrolytes. The goal is to increase energy density, reduce cost and lengthen the cycle and life span. Researchers will develop inks for producing the electrodes by gravure printing. For photovoltaics, the laboratory will focus on the development of innovative perovskite thin-film solar cells, but also of integrated storage systems for the management of intermittency.