TERMOLI. With great pride, AVM in collaboration with Smart Building Design announce that they have been awarded the prestigious award for the “Best Project for Sustainability 2023” during the recent Italian Project Awards ceremony. This award was given for their innovative work in managing motorway service areas for the Sarni Group, a project that marks a significant step towards sustainability in the energy sector.
Description of the project The awarded project concerns the complete automation and monitoring of photovoltaic panels installed in the Sarni Group’s service areas. Using advanced technologies such as FRITZ! the system allows real-time and remote monitoring, guaranteeing maximum energy efficiency and minimizing environmental impact. This not only increases the share of renewable energy consumed but also ensures safe and reliable energy management.
Motivation of the Jury
The jury praised the project for its innovative approach and commitment to responding to a global challenge with equally complete and systemic solutions. The ability to integrate technologically advanced solutions for the optimal management of energy resources has defined this project as a model of sustainability in the sector.
The need To cope with the enormous electricity consumption generated by the influx of customers, the Sarni Group has chosen to equip itself with photovoltaic panels. Smart Building Design, AVM’s business partner, has created a project for the management of important locations of the Sarni Group (including Firenze Nord station, Le Fonti Ovest station in Bari, Trigno station in Campobasso and Sarni Store Finsud logistics in Termoli) studying a solution which, via a dedicated portal, implements a monitoring system capable of verifying that the photovoltaic panels for the production of electricity are always in operation, offering the highest levels of reliability and efficiency. All this allows you to constantly monitor how much the company is saving on its bill, and how much it could further save in the event of a change in electricity supply manager or an upgrade of the system. The solution To meet the need, Smart Building Design chose the FRITZ!Box 6820 LTE and FRITZ!Box 6850 LTE solution from AVM to be connected directly to the photovoltaic panel inverter in order to have and use very interesting features such as connection to the Internet via 4G/3G mobile network and the possibility of establishing a VPN connection and therefore also remote control. Statements “After the experience with LTE modem-routers with SIMs from other brands with a poor level of reliability, we decided to adopt FRITZ!Box 6820 LTE and FRITZ!Box 6850 LTE from AVM because they are the products that have demonstrated the best quality ratio price and the best guarantee in terms of performance and lack of service interruptions. Fundamental elements to ensure the satisfaction of our Sarni customer”, underlined Domenico Pio Travaglini of Smart Building Design. “Thanks to the results we have achieved with this project, in the future we will also propose the same monitoring system to all our industrial and residential customers who do not have the possibility of connecting photovoltaic systems to network cables or existing Wi-Fi networks” . According to Sarni, a photovoltaic system that does not work well on your business represents a loss of income for the company and a potential safety risk.
In collaboration with Smart Building Design, Sarni thought of a solution that would allow any problems to be identified promptly. The need for an independent and autonomous network infrastructure for monitoring photovoltaic systems arose above all to optimally and safely manage one’s business services. The solution adopted allowed Sarni to have a channel dedicated exclusively to the monitoring of photovoltaic systems without interfering with the payment management and video surveillance system. If necessary, technicians can intervene promptly and efficiently to resolve problems, without risking having to interrupt other essential services for the functioning of the main activities. Other LTE products were also used initially, but Sarni encountered reliability issues that represented an additional expense. The optimal solution was identified with FRITZ!Box 6820 LTE which proved to be the most reliable product on the market with a good quality-price ratio.
Sarni confirms that the investment made to create the infrastructure has been amply repaid both in economic terms and in terms of the safety of its activities. Conclusions The versatility and ease of use of FRITZ!Box LTE modems are among the winning aspects of these products, which is why they have been identified as the best solution to fully satisfy the need. Furthermore, Smart Building Design, for the project of the Sarni service areas, managed to respect the budget constraints because the FRITZ!Box 6820 LTE offers a very interesting relationship between efficiency and stability, maintaining high performance standards. Thanks to a network exclusively dedicated to the monitoring system, the AVM partner is able to immediately recognize whether any failure is due to a network error, the communication system or the photovoltaic system. About the Sarni Group The origins of Sarni Ristorazione date back to the early seventies when the five Sarni brothers – originally from Ascoli Satriano – jointly started the management of bars, pizzerias and restaurants, as well as the management of fuel distribution, within the motorway network in southern Italy. Around the mid-nineties the company also started a development program on the network of shopping centers and parks present throughout the country with the opening of various sales points. Sarni Ristorazione is a dynamic and rapidly expanding company throughout the national territory and has become one of the leading operators in Italian catering. In recent years, the management of fuel distribution areas – Sarni Oil – has been added throughout the peninsula, leading to the creation of a truly continuously expanding network.
