RFID and Zero Accidents
MIT researchers and Italy's Enel power company are developing advanced technologies and processes to improve safety at power plants and construction sites.
By Bob Violino
Jan. 17, 2011—Safety is a major concern in building and running power plants, because an accident can cause long delays in construction and greatly increase operational costs. Currently, most safety-planning and reporting processes involve labor-intensive manual data collection and post-accident forensics. Now, a research project known as Future Enel aims to transform safety monitoring and management, through the use of radio frequency identification and other advanced technologies.
The proving ground for the use of these new technologies in the energy industry is one of the world's largest construction sites—a €4 billion ($5.2 billion), 4,000-employee nuclear power plant located in Mochovce, Slovakia, owned by Rome-based Enel, Italy's largest power company and Europe's second largest utility by installed capacity. Future Enel is the brainchild of Gennaro De Michele, Enel Research's executive VP, and Carlo Ratti, the director of the Senseable City Laboratory, a Cambridge, Mass., entity of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that is developing RFID-based sensor technologies for the project. Ratti also serves as Future Enel's principal investigator.
The driving force behind this undertaking is Enel's corporate goal of having zero accidents at its plants and at building sites, says Andrea Riberti, the company's head of advanced diagnostics and technologies for safety, who is responsible for reporting on the progress of MIT's research. "Future Enel aims to ensure an optimum level of safety, efficiency and reliability in work areas, yard sites and power plants," he says, "through the introduction of advanced technologies, new processes and rules to enable an effective and shared change."
Jan. 17, 2011—Safety is a major concern in building and running power plants, because an accident can cause long delays in construction and greatly increase operational costs. Currently, most safety-planning and reporting processes involve labor-intensive manual data collection and post-accident forensics. Now, a research project known as Future Enel aims to transform safety monitoring and management, through the use of radio frequency identification and other advanced technologies.
The proving ground for the use of these new technologies in the energy industry is one of the world's largest construction sites—a €4 billion ($5.2 billion), 4,000-employee nuclear power plant located in Mochovce, Slovakia, owned by Rome-based Enel, Italy's largest power company and Europe's second largest utility by installed capacity. Future Enel is the brainchild of Gennaro De Michele, Enel Research's executive VP, and Carlo Ratti, the director of the Senseable City Laboratory, a Cambridge, Mass., entity of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that is developing RFID-based sensor technologies for the project. Ratti also serves as Future Enel's principal investigator.
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The driving force behind this undertaking is Enel's corporate goal of having zero accidents at its plants and at building sites, says Andrea Riberti, the company's head of advanced diagnostics and technologies for safety, who is responsible for reporting on the progress of MIT's research. "Future Enel aims to ensure an optimum level of safety, efficiency and reliability in work areas, yard sites and power plants," he says, "through the introduction of advanced technologies, new processes and rules to enable an effective and shared change."
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