Green innovation projects in Europe
In Europe SEA settles its presence in the Environmental Strategy Committee and in the Technical and Operational Safety Committee of ACI Europe, the European Airports Association.
In addition, SEA has strenghtened its presence in Europe by promoting partnerships with primary airport, territorial and scientific entities.
The action is also aimed at providing a necessary international scale and a stronger presence of culture and experience in the European interchange. SEA believes that the European context increasingly represents the development arena for dialogue and synergies in the logic of maintaining the technical and cultural leadership position historically held. In this regard, it has promoted and continues promoting significant collaborations with other European airports and local entities for projects focused on energy management and on the development of maintenance procedures and airport infrastructure control systems. This refers to strategic infrastructure in relation to the surrounding area, aimed at the reduction and rationalization of emissions and energy and water usage.
SEA international design dimension is therefore focused on the following issues:
- energy
- emissions
- water
- noise
- sustainable mobility
- safety and security.
The following projects are currently in progress:
- DREAM (Distributed Renewable Resources Exploitation in electric grids through Advanced heterarchical Management) which uses smart grids to lay the foundations of a new heterarchical approach to complex electrical networks. The application of principles based on independent agents in controlling and managing the power distribution network will enable the system to continuously monitor and optimise operational conditions and will make the distribution network less vulnerable to failure. The economic and technical feasibility of these new control mechanisms will be assessed by carrying out several specific tests on sites of European project partners. Milan Malpensa Airport has been chosen among these sites due to the presence of a modern and sophisticated distribution network and its trigeneration plant managed by SEA Energia. This plant produces electricity, heat and refrigerated water (part of electricity is sold outside through the national grid, while heat and refrigerated water are used only within the airport). Based on such tests, computer simulations will also be performed to study the large-scale effects and benefits.
- WATERNOMICS ICT for Water Resource Management, which aims to improve the management of the whole water distribution networks to reduce energy consumption and rationalize flow rates and operating pressures. The Water Footprint governance will involve an approach that will initially be highly geared towards measurements and controls (both dynamic and in real time) of consumption by types and users. Aimed at rationalizing consumption, this approach will provide real-time water usage and availability information to end users and decision-makers in this domain. Improvement of management aimed at achieving significant reductions in consumption will be implemented later, through a complex action on plant components. SEA has provided the project with a test area in Milan Linate Airport where it can implement, test and validate the solution developed by the project.
A further 24 months project was launched in 2015 underthe new HORIZON 2020 European programme:
- OCTAVE, focused on security, aimed at implementing a Trusted Biometric Authentication Service (TBAS) that uses voice recognition to allow access to sensitive areas that are not monitored, to facilities and to online services. For this project too, SEA will provide the international consortium with an area to test the management of accesses: Linate sanitation platform, which is accessible to aircraft cleaners and other entities operating on behalf of SEA. The commitment to the various environmental issues and challenges puts both SEA airports in a clear leadership position nationally, and among the most advanced countries in Europe.
The commitment to the various environmental issues and challenges puts both SEA airports in a clear leadership position nationally, and among the most advanced countries in Europe.