- At the Boston Hub, Enel will work with Greentown Labs to scout for partnerships with the best startups in the US to support operations and growth across Group’s business areas.
ROME, May 07, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Enel S.p.A. ("Enel") announced the opening of its newest Innovation Hub in Boston at Greentown Labs, the largest cleantech startup incubator in the United States. The Hub will provide Enel, one of the world’s leading power companies, access to Greentown Labs’ startup community and innovation expertise. The Hub at Greentown Labs will help foster Enel’s relationships with the best startups across the US, as well as enable strategic partnerships that will help further decarbonise and digitise the Group.
“With this new Hub in Boston, we are continuing to grow our network of Innovation Hubs in the most forward-thinking communities around the world,” said Ernesto Ciorra, Enel’s Head of Innovation and Sustainability (Innovability). “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.”
As part of Enel’s open innovation model, the Hub itself will be located within Greentown Labs, allowing for greater access and interaction between the company and startups. Enel is among only nine large member corporations to have a dedicated space and staff working out of Greentown Labs.
“We’re excited to be able to provide Boston’s startup community with the valuable resources that Enel has to offer,” said Dr. Emily Reichert, CEO of Greentown Labs. “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.”
Greentown Labs will help Enel scout for startups that present solutions capable of solving challenges across all Group’s business lines. Selected startups will partner with Enel and receive support for the development of their technologies with access to all of the laboratories and the expertise of the Group worldwide as well as the possibility to test their solutions in Enel’s plants and facilities. Startups collaborating with Enel can access a wide network of international partners and Venture Capital funds, and, most importantly, will have the opportunity to scale their solutions on Enel’s operations around the world.
Innovation is a core pillar of Enel’s strategy and the Group has invested, on average, 100 million US dollars annually since 2017 in innovation activities. Startups are important partners for Enel, with about 200 collaborations implemented over the last three years and more than 50 solutions from startups scaled up at global level. In the US, Enel has successfully collaborated with more than 30 startups, including Greentown Labs member company Raptor Maps. The two companies are partnering to develop and test cutting-edge utility-scale solar asset management drone and software technologies to optimise field operations and maintenance of solar assets. Enel also works with Titan AES, another Greentown Labs startup, which is developing an ultrasonic sensing technology that can improve the performance of lithium ion battery management systems.
The Enel Innovation Hub in Boston expands upon the Enel Group’s existing footprint in Massachusetts’ clean energy economy. Massachusetts is home to the North American headquarters of both Enel Green Power – a leading owner and operator of renewable energy plants in North America – and Enel X –Enel’s newest global business line dedicated to developing innovative products and digital solutions in sectors in which energy is showing the greatest potential for transformation: cities, homes, industries and electric mobility. This proximity allows for even greater collaboration and mutual access between Enel’s employees and Greentown startups. Enel’s Hubs are strategically located in cities and with partners that demonstrate a high concentration of innovation opportunities. Boston marks Enel’s second location in the US and tenth globally. The other Enel Innovation Hubs are located in: USA (San Francisco), Italy (Catania, Milan and Pisa), Spain (Madrid), Russia (Moscow), Chile (Santiago), Brazil (Rio de Janeiro) and Israel (Tel Aviv).
Greentown Labs has built a time-tested startup recruitment and curation process for corporate customers. It has fine-tuned this service both through its corporate engagement programmes, and through its internationally recognised corporate accelerator, Greentown Launch, which has expedited an impressive number of corporate startup partnerships over the last few years, with 65% of all startups completing the selective programmes with a signed corporate deal.
Enel is a multinational power company and a leading integrated player in the global power, gas and renewables markets. It is one of Europe’s largest utilities and figures among Europe’s leading power companies in terms of installed capacity and reported EBITDA. The Group is present in over 30 countries worldwide, producing energy with around 90 GW of managed capacity. Enel distributes electricity and gas through a network of over 2.2 million kilometres, and with around 73 million business and household end users globally, the Group has the largest customer base among its European peers. Enel’s renewables arm Enel Green Power already manages over 43 GW of wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower plants in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Named one of Fortune Magazine’s “50 Companies that are Changing the World” again in 2018, Enel is a global leader in sustainability and makes significant investments in researching and developing next-generation energy technology. Enel operates in the U.S. and Canada through two business lines, both headquartered in Massachusetts: Enel Green Power and Enel X. Enel X is a leading provider of smart energy services and e-mobility solutions. Enel Green Power is a leader in the green energy sector dedicated to the development and operation of renewables.
www.startup.enel.com | www.enel.com | https://www.enelx.com | https://www.enelgreenpower.com
About Greentown Labs:
Greentown Labs, the largest cleantech incubator in the United States, is a community of bold, passionate entrepreneurs working to solve the world’s biggest energy and environmental challenges. Located in Somerville, Mass., and founded in 2011, the Greentown Labs Global Center for Cleantech Innovation is a 100,000 sq. ft. campus comprised of prototyping and wet lab space, shared office space, a machine shop, electronics lab, and a curated suite of programs and resources. Greentown Labs is home to more than 90 startups that collectively employ more than 1,500 people and have raised more than $400 million in funding. For more information, please visit www.greentownlabs.com or on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
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