Descripción del proyecto
Una nueva tecnología para llenar recursos hídricos
La escasez de agua debida a los cambios medioambientales está pasando factura a numerosos sectores, especialmente al de la energía. La ausencia de métodos efectivos para predecir las cantidades de agua que provienen de la nieve y los ríos representa una cuestión primordial para las empresas hidroeléctricas. El proyecto Waterjade, financiado con fondos europeos, está detrás de una nueva tecnología que aprovecha una serie de fuentes de datos sobre la previsión meteorológica y la información vía satélite. Su objetivo es ayudar a predecir la cantidad de agua que se espera cada año con una precisión fiable. Aunque, inicialmente, los clientes de Waterjade eran plantas hidroeléctricas, en la actualidad, el proyecto está empezando a trabajar con entidades públicas y privadas para predecir sucesos como las sequías y las avalanchas.
Objetivo
"Water is called the new gold of the 21st century, yet, due to climate change, water resources are becoming ever more discontinuous, creating hazardous sitations and big uncertainties in numerous sectors, like energy, where water is the primary ingredient for daily operations.
One of the most recurrent question raised by professionals is: ""how much water is there and when will it become available""?
We have developed a new technology, called Waterjade, capable of predicting water resources at high resolution, both in terms of snow and river discharge. Differently from other competitive technologies, it adopts a physically based modeling approach that integrates multiple sources of data, like in-situ stations, numerical weather predictions and satellite data. The advantages are increased accuracy and scalability to ungauged basins.
Our customers are hydropower companies, whom we deliver a service of snow monitoring upstream the production plants, so they can quantify the energy that is likely to be produced in the long run, and a service of short-term inflow predictions to the plants, useful for safety reason and to optimize the energy production. We are extending the service of snow monitoring also to the public sector, that use it for safety reasons (avalanches) and as an index to anticipate drought.
Working with public and private sectors is giving positive feedback, both in terms of credibility and accuracy as we can benefit from the capillary distribution of in-situ stations from public agencies.
The business model is a ""subscription-based Service"" to the Waterjade portal and the market potential is estimated in about 500 M€/y worldwide, with great potential in particular for hydropower, Europe's and world’s largest renewable energy resource.
"
Ámbito científico
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesmeteorology
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental scienceshydrology
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringsatellite technology
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energyhydroelectricity
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
Programa(s)
Convocatoria de propuestas
Consulte otros proyectos de esta convocatoriaConvocatoria de subcontratación
H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1
Régimen de financiación
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinador
38121 Trento
Italia
Organización definida por ella misma como pequeña y mediana empresa (pyme) en el momento de la firma del acuerdo de subvención.