The Custos of the Sacred Convent of Assisi Father Mauro Gambetti and Terna's Chief Executive Officer and General Manager Luigi Ferraris signed a Memorandum of Understanding relating to the collaboration between the General Custody of the Sacred Convent of San Francesco dei Frati Minori Conventuali and the Company which manages the National Electricity Grid.
The partnership, in the wake of a fruitful collaboration consolidated over several years, confirms the desire to implement a series of actions in the field of sustainability that meet common needs.
Terna, in line with its mission and its commitment to the sustainable development and enhancement of local areas and always with great attention to the general well-being of the communities in which it operates, will contribute – through Terna Energy Solutions (the Terna Group company responsible for the development of new businesses aimed at supporting energy optimization and energy transition) - the development of the Sustainability Project of the Monumental Complex of the Basilica of San Francesco di Assisi through initiatives and interventions aimed at improving the energy and environmental sustainability of the Sacred Convent.
As part of the "fra' Sole" project, with the aim of maximizing consumption and energy efficiency of the monumental center of Assisi, the agreement provides for the construction of various works and systems such as the installation of a trigenerator , capable of generating heat in winter and cold in summer and electricity for the needs of the Convent and for recharging electric vehicles for use by residents. In particular, the trigenerator will make it possible to avoid 35 tons of CO2 in a year, while the installation of two columns of up to 22 kW of power each will allow for the simultaneous electric charging of up to four electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles inside a area of 800 square meters used for parking vehicles used by the friars, employees and guest visitors.
The energy monitoring of the Sacred Convent is also part of the project, carried out on the thermal and electrical side, through the installation of various measuring instruments in the technical systems of the convent. The collected data will allow the development of analyzes aimed at highlighting any anomalies and, therefore, possible areas of optimization and providing quantitative evaluations on the trend of electricity consumption and thermal needs of the Convent.
The agreement also includes Terna's support for the project known as “fra' Sole” and for all the related scheduled events linked to Francesco's economy. The initiative, which has obtained the patronage of the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, the Pontifical Council for Integral Human Development, the Umbria Region and the City of Assisi, and has involved important players in the Italian Circular Economy part of the process of progressive reduction of environmental impacts started within the Sacred Convent to allow for the most efficient and sustainable management possible.
«This agreement – declared Terna's Chief Executive Officer and General Manager Luigi Ferraris – symbolizes the commitment undertaken by Terna to improve the environmental and energy sustainability of the Sacred Convent, a highly evocative symbolic complex and one of the most important in the world for its artistic and religious appeal. The collaboration also constitutes a further step towards strengthening dialogue and listening with local communities through the technological development of sustainable initiatives and projects".
"The partnership with Terna allows us to look to the future with the best wishes to achieve the objectives that we set ourselves with the "fra' Sole" project - declared the Custodian of the Sacred Convent of Assisi, Father Mauro Gambetti. For years, in close collaboration with Arpa Umbria and Sisifo, we have been working with various partners to improve the energy and environmental sustainability of the Sacred Convent. The agreement with Terna and the further plant intervention that will follow is another important and concrete contribution to making peace and harmony grow between us and nature, between citizens and the surrounding environment. It is a commitment that we subscribe to and will carry forward because we love the world we live in and care about future generations. In this moment of global crisis, due to the coronavirus, the significant drop in CO2 emissions is under the eyes of all. This must stimulate all of us to increasingly convert our habits, our ways of living, starting from our small world with ideas, projects and good practices aimed at changing our planet for the better, starting from everyday life and looking forward with hope . The path to follow is that of energy and environmental sustainability, the path to follow is that of the "Canticle of creatures": the song of beautiful and virtuous relationships with God, with nature and among us men, the song of Life without end, which Francis writes shortly before his transit from earth to heaven, suffering and now blind».
