New life for the former thermoelectric plant in Augsburg: thanks to the agreement signed between Enel, the National Research Council (CNR), through the Department of Engineering, ICT and Technologies for Energy and Transport (DIITET), and the Science and Technology Park of Sicily, within areas no longer utilities of the plant, a research center dedicated to sustainable reclamation and actions to mitigate the environmental impacts of plants and infrastructures for the generation of energy connected to them will be created. The facility, which will be completed in 2021, will be made available to researchers from the CNR's "Nicola Giordano" Institute of Advanced Energy Technologies and Science Park, with the aim of strengthening Italian scientific research and creating a reference at international level.
Regarding research on sustainable remediation the goal is to create a center of excellence thanks to facilities and technologies and the possibility of carrying out studies by replicating specific site conditions in the laboratory; in this way the parties will be able to provide new solutions for the decommissioning and transition activities underway in the energy sector at an international level, an interdisciplinary research area with high scientific, social and economic potential. Other studies will concern the integration between crops and energy production activities, as for example occurs in agri-voltaic applications, and the re-use of plants used in phytoremediation processes, a natural remediation technology.
“The creation of a research center – he commentedo Carlo Tamburi, Director of Enel Italy – entrusted to important partners such as CNR and the Science Park and built in the no longer used spaces of a thermoelectric plant, it is a clear example of how sustainability and the circular economy can generate value, confirming that the energy transition underway represents a great opportunity for the country and for the territory".
“Support the birth and promotion of the Research Center of Augusta – he added the president of the CNR Massimo Inguscio -, animating it with researchers and skills, is strategic for the country as a whole, but also for the CNR and for the Sicily Region, which must and want to face the energy transition and industrial reconversion, fundamental actions for economic recovery in harmony with the strategies and objectives of the wider European context and in view of the Green Deal”.
In addition to the laboratories where to conduct the experimentation, the Research Center of Augusta will be equipped with offices, a conference room and all the elements necessary to make it an autonomous pole. From an energy point of view, the Center will be equipped with a large coverage of photovoltaic panels, a solar thermal panel system for the production of domestic hot water and a heat pump system for cooling and heating the building.
