The new "flue gas cleaning" project was inaugurated today, with the launch of the new fume treatment and energy recovery systems of the Brescia waste-to-energy plant managed by A2A on all three lines.
All thanks to an investment of around 110 million to make the waste-to-energy plant even more efficient and sustainable, of which 45 are destined for plants that allow a further cut in emissions.
Present at the inauguration were A2A CEO Renato Mazzoncini, Laura Castelletti, mayor of Brescia;
Attilio Fontana, president of the Lombardy Region and Emanuele Moraschini, president of the Province of Brescia.
Thanks to an innovative technology it will be possible to generate additional thermal energy for 12,500 families for the same amount of waste treated, thus reducing the use of gas to power the district heating network and bringing the system efficiency from 84% to 98% and allowing to introduce 164 GWh/year of additional heat into the district heating network with zero environmental impact.
“With the new flue gas line, which maximizes the efficiency of the waste-to-energy plant, we increase the thermal energy produced by the TU intended for heating Brescia families.
A project that confirms A2A's commitment to the decarbonisation of the urban fabric and the reuse of the energy available in the area.
A circularity model in which Brescia leads the way but which we want to export to other territories" declared Renato Mazzoncini, CEO of A2A.
The plant, which is the first district heating network in Italy, recovers electrical and thermal energy every year from approximately 720,000 tons of waste that is not otherwise recyclable.
The three lines of the waste-to-energy plant generate over 70% of the heat distributed by the district heating network (861 thermal Gwh in 2023) and electricity equal to the needs of 180,000 families (506 Gwh in 2023).
Numbers that allow saving around 160 thousand tonnes of oil equivalent per year, avoiding the emission of 830 thousand tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
In Italy today, around 19% of waste is disposed of in landfill, a value far from the European target of 10% set for 2035, while in Brescia it has reached 0%.