Providing energy and water, ensuring urban hygiene and the quality of services for citizens have always been part of the purpose of utilities and companies in the energy sector. Today, these businesses, central to the history of industrial development, are pioneers in giving substance to the challenges of sustainability: decarbonising the energy system, circular economy, mitigating and adapting to climate change, as well as a renewed and evolved relationship with the land. Global problems and local responses.

All this can be usefully framed as the operators’ social responsibility, according to which technical aspects (such as the plants’ evolution and efficiency, the development of new and more effective services, the assurance of resources for citizens and regions) and social aspects (such as the involvement of stakeholders, the search for the most appropriate forms of sustainability, the balanced governance of the necessary transition) relate profoundly and organically in the perspective of the “smart utility“.

The reliability and security of networks, energy efficiency and decarbonisation, control of the impacts of the products’ life cycle, the health and safety of workers and citizens, the energy and environmental framework of a region, stakeholder engagement, sustainability education, AI and the IoT as the basis for new services are areas where NIER plans to make a contribution.