Italian energy company Enel has launched new Innovation Hub, located in Boston at Greentown Labs, a cleantech start-up incubator.
Image: Enel's headquarters in Rome, Italy. Photo: courtesy of Blackcat/Wikipedia.
The new Boston hub is expected to help foster Enel’s relationships with start-ups in the US in addition to allowing strategic partnerships to help further decarbonize and digitize the Italian firm.
Enel Innovation and Sustainability (Innovability) Head Ernesto Ciorra said: “Enel is working relentlessly to boost the energy sector’s sustainability by implementing its open innovation model, whereby the new Boston Hub, coupled with the existing one in San Francisco, focuses our attention on the wealth of innovative solutions offered by North America, a strategic energy market which presents significant growth opportunities for our Group.”
Additionally, the Hub will provide Enel with access to Greentown Labs’ startup community and innovation expertise as well as allows for greater access and interaction with startups.
Greentown Labs CEO Dr Emily Reichert said: “Greentown Labs is dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs to create transformative energy technologies and our partnership with Enel will help support this mission as we’re able to offer our startup community additional support for the development of their technologies and access to Enel’s plants and facilities.”
The hub will also allow Enel to partner with selected startups, which will receive support for the development of their technologies with access to all of the laboratories and the firm’s expertise.
In addition to having the possibility to test their solutions in Enel’s plants and facilities, the startups collaborating with Enel will have access to a wide network of international partners and Venture Capital funds.
Enel said that the startups will also have the opportunity to scale their solutions on Enel’s operations.
Till date, Enel has collaborated with more than 30 start-ups in the US, including Greentown Labs member Raptor Maps.
The firms have teamed up to develop and test utility-scale solar asset management drone and software technologies in order to optimize field operations and maintenance of solar assets.
Enel said that the Innovation Hub in Boston will expand the firm’ existing footprint in Massachusetts’ clean energy economy.
The Enel’s other Innovation Hubs are located in San Francisco, US; Catania, Milan and Pisa, Italy; Madrid, Spain; Moscow, Russia; Santiago, Chile; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Tel Aviv, Israel.