Hera Group: ArtificiAl intelligence And cosmic rAys to protect our blue gold

by the Editorial Staff

The Hera Group, one of Italy’s largest multi-utility companies, has always strongly focused on innovation, making substantial investments to ensure the continuity and quality of essential services for the local areas in which it operates. Italy’s second-largest operator in the integrated water cycle, with over 3.6 million citizens served in approximately 230 municipalities, Hera Group manages everything from catchment to drinking water and distribution, sewerage systems and purification. In this sector alone, it carries out works worth about 130 million euro per year, adopting technological solutions that protect and regenerate, where possible, this resource, in line with the sustainable development goals on the United Nations 2030 Agenda.

The use of state-of-the-art tools, combined with more traditional methods, is essential to ensure continuity in services and to prevent, or repair, any network losses.

As early as 2016, among the first to do so in Italy, the Hera Group equipped itself with an innovative system based on using satellites to scan the subsoil, to reduce the phenomenon of hidden leaks in water networks. And that’s not all: the Group recently introduced an even more futuristic technology, based on cosmic rays, energy particles that come from space and to which the Earth is continuously exposed. These particles, which are not harmful, are slowed down or absorbed by hydrogen. Given that a water molecule contains two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, when a water leak occurs many hydrogen molecules absorb the free neutrons and cause them to be less numerous on street surfaces. The new system, which can be mounted on any mobile vehicle, is able to detect this decrease.

The latest innovation for protecting water resources dates to April 2022, with the launch in Romagna of a pilot campaign that saw the installation of smarty water meters. These devices are capable of sensing network leaks by way of a hydrophone that detects any anomalies in real time thanks to noise, so that repairs can be carried out immediately. Based on its exclusive ALD (Acoustic Leak Detection) technology, the Hera Group plans to extend this project to other areas in 2023 and 2024. Network leaks can thus be detected early, but how can breakage be prevented? In the end, there is only one way to prevent a leak: replace the pipeline before it breaks. This is why the multi-utility is constantly adding new elements to its already comprehensive active research programme, and is also investing in predictive maintenance thanks to artificial intelligence. An algorithm makes it possible to identify the points in the water network showing the greatest risk of breakage, so that targeted pipeline replacements can be planned accordingly.

The Hera Group also makes use of high-tech tools for monitoring sewerage pipes. In addition to drones, designed to support inspections, since 2018 the Group has been using satellite scanning in this area as well. Thanks to the weekly ground level data provided by the European Space Agency, and by superimposing the network map onto the scan, it is possible to obtain a precise verification of the state of the ground and the related infrastructure. This way, if rapid downward trends are detected, it is possible to intervene with a video inspection to further investigate the state of the pipelines, switching from a predominantly “emergency” mode to a “predictive” mode.

Innovation in the water sector also concerns purification. For example, at the Modena plant, a system has been introduced, once again thanks to the use of artificial intelligence, that is capable of controlling the oxidation process, a fundamental phase in the wastewater purification cycle which can improve the quality of outgoing water and optimise energy consumption.

Even more fundamental is the regeneration of this resource. In addition to important protocols for indirect reuse of purified water signed with the Emilia-Romagna Region and the reclamation consortia, the results of a technologically advanced experimental project for the direct reuse of wastewater in agriculture, developed by Hera in cooperation with ENEA, the University of Bologna and Irritec, were recently presented.

Experimental data shows that, unlike network water, the nutrients already present in purified water, necessary for plant growth, allow for a reduced use of fertilisers.

All these projects, inspired by innovation, represent the integrated approach with which the Hera Group is successfully tackling the challenges of protecting our blue gold, a resource that has always been indispensable to our planet.

The book presents numerous, well-argued and documented reflections illustrating the value of the Space Economy as the new frontier for development. 61 years have elapsed since the first human flight into Earth’s orbit, and all the projects that followed have created huge value and benefits for humankind. Being primarily government funded, the conquest of space has led some states to prevail over others in the geopolitical scenario in terms of strategic, economic, and defence superiority or prestige. However, for a few decades now the advent of private investors and the capital they deployed has changed the balance of power making government institutions no longer the solo protagonists of the sector. Astro-diplomacy could soon make the current implications of traditional geopolitics short-lived and eventually irrelevant. Private actors have become space players and, in some sectors, they're holding an undisputed monopoly and dictate the rules, and this is not a figment of the imagination. Elon Musk, for one, has disrupted the global balance of power by funding his company's free Internet service to Ukraine which is currently fighting against the invading Russian army. To understand why space has become the new frontier of economic development, one of the few remaining strategic assets besides the supply of energy sources or raw materials, military control, environmental protection, and climate change monitoring, we need to recognize the role played by the deployment of non-terrestrial capabilities: space technologies are a key asset to make decisions on many critical fields of our coexistence in this terrestrial space and beyond.

Conquering the Moon with robotic bases or even human habitat structures, as well as undertaking interplanetary journeys, require massive public and private investments to finance launches, robotics,