Italgas expands fleet to 20 Picarro-equipped vehicles to accelerate efforts to reduce emissions and ensure public safety 

Santa Clara, CA, April 13, 2021 – Picarro Inc., the industry leader in analytics-driven leak detection and methane emissions quantification solutions, today announced that Italgas, the largest gas distributor in Italy and third largest in Europe, is adding to its fleet of Picarro-equipped cars. With the additional vehicles, Italgas along with its subsidiaries will have a fleet of 20 cars and 84 Picarro Backpack leak detection units, making it the largest consolidated user of the Picarro Natural Gas Asset Management Solution. The availability of this large fleet of Picarro-equipped cars and Backpack systems will help Italgas improve the productivity of their leak survey program, enhance their analytical capabilities and position them as a worldwide leader in the digitalization of their infrastructure. 

Picarro started working with Italgas in 2017 as a service provider and a trusted technology partner. Italgas has used Picarro’s Asset Management Solution to conduct compliance and emissions quantification surveys, and to utilize the collected data for advanced asset management of its entire 73,000-kilometer network. As a result, the company has been able to reduce alerts significantly exceeding regulatory expectations and be one of the first DSO in Europe since 2019 to actually measure the emissions of their network. In 2021, Italgas will be able to further mitigate their emissions and execute an optimized pipeline replacement plan based on the data and analysis performed with the Picarro technology.

 
“Italgas is always committed to reducing environmental impact of its activities and improving further safety through efficient management of the gas delivery infrastructure, processes and services,” said Paolo Gallo, CEO of Italgas. “By providing expert services, highly accurate gas analyzers, and powerful predictive analysis capabilities, Picarro has been instrumental in further improving the effectiveness of our verification activities, enabling us meet our goals and give a concrete answer to the European Commission’s recommendations regarding the mitigation of climate-changing emissions.”

“As the world’s natural gas infrastructure ages, reducing emissions and ensuring safety becomes more difficult and more costly,” said Alex Balkanski, President and CEO of Picarro.  “Pipeline operators are now looking at innovation to improve their asset management efficiency and sustainability, relying on new, predictive tools to optimize maintenance and assist in decisions for proactive replacement of pipelines within their infrastructure. With Italgas using our gas asset management solution, we’re pleased to be a critical part of the solution to these growing challenges.”

About Italgas
Italgas is the leading gas distributor in Italy and third in Europe: it manages a distribution network that extends for a total of about 73,000 kilometers through which it has distributed about 9 billion cubic meters of gas to 7.7 million users. The Group, including its non-consolidated subsidiaries, holds 1,887 concessions, with a historical presence in the country's major cities, including Turin, Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples. For more information on Italgas, visit: www.italgas.it.

Picarro, Inc.
Picarro is the industry leader in advanced leak detection and emissions quantification for natural gas distribution. Picarro’s Asset Management Solution is a hardware-enabled data analytics platform that combines mobile methane emissions measurements and other data sources with powerful analytics, enabling natural gas operators to manage their networks to be more safe, clean and cost-effective than ever before, increasing capital efficiency while simultaneously reducing operational and environmental risks in their infrastructure. 
For more information on Picarro’s gas asset management solutions, visit: energy.picarro.com.

Contacts:
Siiri Hage
Director of Marketing Communications
Picarro, Inc.
shage@picarro.com

Claudio Urciuolo
Head of Media Relations 
Italgas SpA
claudio.urciuolo@italgas.it
ufficio.stampa@italgas.it