CVA Group is one of Italy’s leading renewable energy producers, with more than 1.3 GW of installed capacity across hydropower, wind and solar plants. Fully publicly owned and controlled by the Autonomous Region of Aosta Valley, the Group operates across the entire green energy value chain and, through its subsidiary DEVAL, manages almost the entire regional electricity distribution network.
As part of a growth path that also aims to double installed capacity, CVA chose to strengthen the climate resilience of its infrastructure with tools able to read risk in a more quantitative, granular and forward-looking way.
For those managing electricity networks in mountainous areas, climate risk has a specific layer of complexity. Infrastructure runs through narrow valleys, crosses areas with high hydrogeological hazard, and is simultaneously exposed to multiple risks such as floods, wildfires and landslides. Official maps remain an essential reference, but they do not always provide the level of granularity needed for asset-level decisions. Detailed engineering assessments, on the other hand, are time-consuming and difficult to scale across an entire region.
A further dimension is now impossible to ignore: the future. It is no longer enough to understand today’s risk. It is also necessary to understand how that risk may evolve over the coming decades, in order to guide investments, adaptation strategies and operational priorities.
It is in this context that CVA started working with Eoliann, selecting as a first scope of analysis part of its electricity network and 20 substations in Aosta Valley, with the aim of moving towards a more advanced approach to climate risk assessment.
The project
CVA and Eoliann jointly developed a project based on Airis technology. Rather than limiting the work to hazard assessment alone, the analysis covered the full risk chain: from the probability and intensity of events to asset vulnerability, all the way to the estimation of expected economic damage.
CVA provided the geospatial data of the network, guided the selection of the pilot assets, and contributed its knowledge of the territory to validate the results.
Asset segmentation and analysis
Power lines were divided into 30-metre segments, consistently with the resolution of the models. Each segment and each substation were then analysed through Eoliann’s proprietary models, trained on satellite data, climate variables and geomorphological features of the territory.
Hazard and event intensity
The analysis focused on two main hazards:
- Floods, assessed through flood depth across 20-, 100- and 200-year return periods
- Wildfires, analysed through the Fire Weather Index (FWI) across 2-, 10- and 30-year return periods
A first layer of landslide risk assessment was also included.
Vulnerability and expected economic damage
For each asset, Airis estimated not only hazard, but also its specific vulnerability depending on the infrastructure type, together with the Average Annual Loss (AAL), a metric that captures the average economic impact of risk over time.
Each asset was therefore assigned both a Hazard Index and a Risk Index on a 0–10 scale.
Climate projections for 2040 and 2050
All analyses were carried out both for the current scenario and for future climate scenarios, with 2040 and 2050 horizons and RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios.
This allowed CVA to understand not only present-day risk, but also its possible evolution over time, in line with key European requirements on disclosure and adaptation.
Map of the flood risk index across the electricity network – Baseline 2025
The results
The project delivered a complete risk profile for more than 3,600 network segments and 20 substations, with a reading that goes from hazard all the way to expected economic damage, also including projections for 2040 and 2050.
Value generated
A complete reading of risk
CVA now has access not only to a measure of hazard, but also to an estimate of vulnerability and expected economic loss for each asset.
A view into the future
The 2040 and 2050 projections make it possible to plan adaptation investments based on how risk may evolve, not just on today’s snapshot.
Clearer priorities for intervention
The most exposed lines and substations were identified precisely, providing a quantitative basis for maintenance and resilience planning.
Multiple hazards, one single framework
Floods, wildfires and landslides were analysed through the same logic and on the same data foundation, resulting in a more integrated view of risk.
Why it matters
The project with CVA clearly shows what it means to move from a fragmented reading of risk to a more complete one, able to keep present and future together.
Because strengthening the resilience of a network does not only mean knowing where risk is concentrated today. It also means understanding how it may change over time, and starting to make decisions accordingly.
Would you like to put Airis to the test on your assets? Request a demo.
In December 2024, CA Auto Bank announced the selection of six innovative projects proposed to Digital Factory, the open innovation platform created in collaboration with the Incubator of Politecnico di Torino (I3P). The platform was designed to explore new solutions and technologies that could contribute to the Bank’s digital transformation. The six projects were selected from the 50+ that passed the initial screening of the more than 150 applications received since the platform’s launch. These projects are now undergoing an experimentation phase to test and validate the proposed solutions.
One of the young companies with which the Digital Factory team has initiated a Proof-of-Concept is Eoliann.
Eoliann’s primary product is a digital interface that provides climate risk assessment data through various artificial intelligence algorithms, integrating physics, economics, climate studies, and satellite data. These data are managed through cloud infrastructure, ensuring automation and scalability. “Our solution aims to help operators across various industries easily quantify climate risk exposure in an up-to-date and accurate manner”, says Roberto Carnicelli, Co-Founder & CEO of Eoliann. “The growing awareness of this issue and the need for new solutions have been driven by recent regulatory changes in the past few years, particularly in the banking and insurance sectors, as well as the increasing frequency of natural catastrophes and the damage they inflict on public and private property”.
Eoliann’s proposal has attracted the interest of CA Auto Bank, particularly its internal cluster dedicated to Climate Risk, due to its potential integration into the digital Bank’s operations, especially within its insurance arm.
The information, estimates, and forecasts developed by the startup could enhance the Bank’s ability to comprehensively assess financial risks from extreme weather events, support the development of new insurance products and services, optimize loan and investment portfolio management, and improve the accuracy of credit risk calculations.
“From our perspective, the project proposed by Eoliann offers significant opportunities for real-world experimentation and potential integration with both CA Auto Bank’s internal platforms and the services we provide in international markets,” says Andrea Mastroeni, ESG Manager at CA Auto Bank. “The Digital Factory initiative has given us the opportunity to engage with many young companies that have a strong innovative drive and are eager to contribute their technological expertise. We are pleased to have launched a Proof-of-Concept with Eoliann, which we selected specifically for its unique potential. We are confident that this trial will yield positive results and that our collaboration can continue to evolve”.
Eoliann has also expressed enthusiasm about the opportunity created by Digital Factory and the start of its first real-world collaboration with CA Auto Bank. “This Proof-of-Concept allows us to demonstrate the effectiveness of our technological approach, which integrates satellite data, advanced climate models, and artificial intelligence to provide increasingly precise and actionable risk assessments”, says Giovanni Luddeni, Co-founder and CTO of Eoliann. “Working with CA Auto Bank enables us to test the scalability of our solution in an actual financial setting”.