Portuguese forest firefighting project honoured with international innovation award

Natureye, a set of innovative solutions for fighting rural fires developed in partnership by REN – Redes Energéticas Nacionais and ADAI - Association for the Development of Industrial Aerodynamics at the University of Coimbra, was recognised at the 2025 Gartner Eye on Innovation Awards as one of the most innovative solutions in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region in the Power and Utilities category.

The Natureye project is part of Agenda Transform, a consortium involving 56 entities in 30 projects, which aims to digitally transform the Portuguese forestry sector. It stands out for its strong technological component and its concrete response to one of the country's greatest environmental challenges: forest fires. This is an integrated solution that uses more than 80 multispectral cameras to be installed on REN's very high voltage towers, which permanently monitor high-risk forest areas, covering more than one million hectares, especially in regions at greater risk of forest fires.

This surveillance network, supported by multisensory data and predictive algorithms, is linked to a central decision support platform, CENTRODEC, based in Coimbra, where alarms will be validated and analysed based on technical criteria, allowing the potential behaviour of a fire to be projected and response measures to be anticipated.

The Gartner Eye on Innovation Awards recognise projects developed by companies that stand out for their transformative approach and the creation of sustainable value through technological innovation. This award, given by an international panel of executives from the energy and utilities sector, recognises technological initiatives of excellence that demonstrate a concrete impact on the results of organisations.

This international recognition is, above all, a clear sign that innovation, when focused on concrete problems and real challenges, can generate solutions with transformative effects. REN thus reaffirms its commitment to innovation, sustainability and safety, positioning itself as an active agent in building a more resilient future.