The ARRM1 campus houses 11 different research institutes of the CNR distributed over several buildings. The campus was developed in three different periods. The first building lot dating back to the early 1970s is located on the hill to the northwest of the Area, and consists of four prefabricated type buildings. The second lot, built in the early 1980s, is located in the central part of the campus. The third lot is newly constructed and consists of six prefabricated concrete buildings arranged on two floors. Each of the buildings are supplied by their own electrical substation (except Building 20, which is served by the Lot I substation, and Building 6, which is supplied by the Lot II substation) and by its own generator set.

ARRM1 is committed to a path of emission reduction and intends to achieve independence from fossil fuel use in the coming years. the overall emission reduction pathway will be characterized by a process of energy efficiency upgrading of existing technological facilities and the installation of power generation facilities from photovoltaic systems.

The implementation of performance improvements to the building envelopes that house offices and research laboratories will also be important.

Significant upgrading of buildings such as the guesthouse that will become NZEB (Nearly Zero Energy Building) are planned.

Overall, the pathway which has been established aims to solve problems related to:

• High costs for electricity use and heating/cooling
• Dependence on fossil fuels for power and heat production on the campus
• Old age and technical obsolescence of facilities and thus major costs related to routine and extraordinary maintenance
• Limited ability to control consumption and thus little ability to intervene at the points of the greatest quantified but also uncontrolled consumption
• Reduced thermal efficiency of buildings

The pathway to efficiency consists of several interventions that will be carried out at different times and will cover:

• The production of renewable energy through the installation of a photovoltaic system on the roofs and on a portion of land in ARRM1
• The replacement of GHP systems with LPG in Lot 3 with high-efficiency heat pumps.
• The optimization of the efficiency of indoor and outdoor lighting systems
• The improvement of the efficiency of water pumping and water purification systems
• The production of hot water with solar thermal system
• The increase of the efficiency of the thermal performance of buildings
• The replacement of two thermal power plants