Acciai Speciali Terni, a leading company in Italy and in Europe for the production of flat rolled products in stainless steel, presented its new plant for the generation of steam in an innovative way, active within the Terni plant. It is the result of a highly technological intervention, unique in Italy, designed and carried out by Avvenia, a Terna group company leader in the energy efficiency sector, which makes it possible to optimize and increase the qualitative and environmental performances in the production of the historic Terni steelworks . With the new structure, AST is more virtuous from a production, energy and sustainable point of view: the efficiency improvement devised by Avvenia allows the plant to raise the share of steam produced to 70% of the total without using fossil fuels. With enormous benefits for the local area: by limiting methane consumption, AST will reduce CO emissions2 into the atmosphere for a quantity of 30 thousand tons per year.
The work, completed in record time e lasted just a year without any production stoppage (with the exception of the summer and Christmas period), they involved about a hundred engineers and specialized technicians from Avvenia, also involving exclusively local businesses, for a total investment of 4 million euros. The presentation ceremony was held at the Terni plant. For AST, the Chief Executive Officer Massimiliano Burelli, the Plant Manager Massimo Calderini and the Director of the Energia Mauro Grigoletto participated. For Avvenia, Luca Piemonti and Francesco Campaniello, respectively Chief Executive Officer and General Manager, were present. Specifically, the project - which focused on the chimney of the historic Terni site, raised from 65 to the current 70 meters to obtain a better draught - makes it possible to recover a large amount of heat (so-called thermal waste) from the rolling mill hot, transform it into steam and reuse it in the entire production cycle.
The new plant will now be completely managed by AST technicians, trained by Avvenia experts in the use of the monitoring and diagnosis platform Diana, the energy services company's proprietary software. For your own production cycle the AST factory in Terni uses over 230 tons of steam a year which is normally produced with fossil fuels in boilers. Since the end of the 80s, over 30% of this steam has been produced through heat recovery, avoiding emissions into the atmosphere as far as possible. With the aim of further reducing the environmental impact and at the same time increasing its sustainability, AST has identified the possibility of increasing the production of steam recovered from thermal waste. With the heat recovery steam generator (GVR), the engineering and construction of which was entrusted to Avvenia, the company has brought the share of steam produced without the use of fossil fuels to 70%, thus avoiding the into the atmosphere of large quantities of carbon dioxide.
To give a dimension of the improvement made, the 30 thousand tons of CO per year2 not introduced, correspond to the consumption of 15 families: therefore, it is as if a third of Terni's inhabitants no longer use natural gas to satisfy their energy needs. The presentation of the GVR was an opportunity to highlight and disseminate AST's efforts to make its stainless steel production sustainable. Thanks to investments in energy efficiency and the activity aimed at seeking maximum efficiency in the production process, since 2015 AST has reduced its specific consumption by 3%, a value corresponding to the annual electricity consumption of half of the families in the city of Terni. For Avvenia, on the other hand, this intervention makes it possible to expand the range of tailor-made solutions for the benefit of its customers and for the benefit of environmental sustainability.
Massimiliano Burelli, Chief Executive Officer of AST: "This project carried out together with Avvenia allows us to improve the circularity and sustainability profile of our company and is part of a well-defined path that we are pursuing thanks to other important interventions. Just one example is the project for the recovery of slag deriving from the production of stainless steel presented a few days ago in Rome, the first experiment of this type in Italy. Over the past 5 years, AST has invested over 25 million euros in environmental projects and spends 30 million every 12 months on environmental management alone. AST is a candidate to become an avant-garde example of that circular economy much discussed in conferences, which will now have to be practiced in the life of companies".
Luca Piemonti, Chief Executive Officer of Avvenia (Energy Service Company of the Terna Group)"We are proud to have designed and built this important project for a large industrial company such as AST, which combines innovation, technology, energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, with benefits also for the benefit of workers and citizens. A project, the first of its kind in Italy, which has allowed Avvenia to capitalize on the distinctive know-how and extensive experience gained over the years in the field of energy efficiency, a sector that will increasingly play a key role in the current transition in the energy system. This virtuous partnership goes precisely in the direction outlined both at national and European level for the achievement of the objectives, shared by all the actors involved, of reducing primary energy consumption and polluting emissions into the atmosphere".
