District heating, which 350 Italian cities have known for decades, will never be the same again. The existing networks satisfy millions of users but the system's power supply can be configured with renewable sources. Engie, involved in the renewable energy sector, has successfully tested it in Racconigi province of Cuneo. It is the latest technological stage that at a system level, reduces the use of methane gas. The Piedmont plant has used gas up to now but now works only with solar. The company has installed 525 panels which will produce 917 megawatts of clean energy while saving 250 tons of CO2 emissions per year.
Contribution to decarbonisation
The work is a demonstration of how it is possible to intervene on existing infrastructures and guarantee increasingly higher standards of efficiency. 350 district heating networks existing only five have experimented with integration with a solar system. Racconigi has 120 users, however the territorial and family benefits merge with environmental and seasonal ones. In summer the panels will be able to cover the total needs of the network, in winter they will cover many absorptions. By making investments with these applications even networks designed with the use of fossil fuels will help the transition. The experimentation will continue: "District heating can play a fundamental role for the decarbonization and the use of energy from renewable sources for heat generation makes existing networks increasingly efficient”, he says Fabrizio Moioli, director of Engie Italia. Positive message: transform old plants to look to a greener future.
