There is a physical space in which the words of Mario Draghi in Parliament on ecological transition and the South can meet in a new development perspective: the places of renewable energy. Four Regions – Molise, Puglia, Basilicata e Calabria – for some time they produce energy that they do not consume, automatically transferring it outside its own territorial areas. The revision of the Recovery plan that Draghi has undertaken to carry out within the right time for presentation in Brussels could find a concrete application in the exploitation of clean sources for the benefit of the most deficit part of the country. Good signals are coming from Europe in the direction of produce energy from waste. A point, in truth, on which the Italian industries of the sector have been insisting for some time but with poor operational results.
The new government will have to show less shyness and opposition towards the creation of new plants, acknowledging the need to relaunch a delicate supply chain, which must be made more modern as well as profitable. There is no shortage of skills, starting – coincidentally – with jobs also conceived in Italy.
The project Refuse for Networks (electric or gas) – structured by Enea, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the University of Denmark and the Solidpow group – has developed a system based on the technology of Reversible Solid Oxide Fuel Cells. Electrochemical devices that produce clean energy with natural factor separation processes. The end result is waste electricity with use of the excess to have gas for use in transport or to enter in natural gas distribution networks.
On the Italian side, the study took the Southern Regions as a model, which will be able to play a decisive role in the ecological transition. By 2030 the four Regions will have an increase in non-programmable renewables.
«But – they explain Alexander Agostini e Claudio Carbon of Enea - with the progressive penetration of wind and photovoltaic energy in the national energy mix, overproduction will become increasingly complex to manage, with the risk of slowing down the diffusion and exploitation of renewable sources".
With the right strategy, therefore, the fuel cell system would make it possible to make the best use of this overproduction which, combined with the exploitation of organic waste, would produce biomethane. A reversal of the trend compared to the no to industrial structures and processes until yesterday. In a few years, the entire management of the Italian electricity system would improve by using non-polluting sources.
Along the road of the circular economy, the complicated cannot be omitted waste management. The government will have to take into account that the recycling rate in 2020 in the South was 39% against 45% of the national average. Differences from area to area with increasing disposal costs, rather than the virtuous recovery of the obtainable energy. The European project relaunches this too, clarifying that its implementation would push the EU objectives of 32% of the energy mix for each individual country. Italy will choose.
