Fuelled by locally sourced forest biomass within a radius of 70km of the facility, the €15m power plant will be used to heat geothermal steam at the Cornia 2 power plant in Castelnuovo Val di Cecina in Tuscany.
The waste-to-power plant is expected to boost the Cornia 2 facility’s annual power generation capacity to 30GWh while reducing CO2 emissions by 13,000t. It will create up to 40 jobs.
Biomass is used to heat up the steam from 150°-160° Celsius to 370°-380° Celsius. This increased steam enthalpy increases the overall electricity generation capacity.
Enel Green Power CEO Francesco Venturini said: "The integration of different technologies is a major step forward for the future of renewable energy.
"This plant will enable the optimization of results and represents a replicable model that opens up new local energy, economic and employment opportunities."
The new plant is said to have nearly zero impact on environment, improve existing industrial plant, and maintain the total renewability of both the resource and the cycle.
