Europe's Largest Dry Anaerobic Digestion Plant to Use Kompogas®
Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI) delivers its Kompogas® technology for Europe’s largest biogas plant for dry anaerobic digestion. The facility, built in the north of Italy, will process approximately 100,000 tonnes of organic municipal solid waste per year. The region around Bologna will benefit from the products generated by this process.
Europe’s largest biowaste dry anaerobic digestion plant is to be constructed under the lead of the established Italian company Cesaro Mac. Import. As the exclusive partner of Kompogas® in Italy, Cesaro Mac. Import will be using the tried-and-trusted dry fermentation technology provided by Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI). The core module comprising horizontal plug-flow digesters, feed, and discharger, coupled with a process monitoring system and maintenance services, has already proven its worth several times over in collaboration between the two companies: “Given that we already successfully use the Kompogas® technology at the plants in Faedo (TN), Novi Ligure (AL), and Nera Montoro (TR), there was no question about using this technology on this key project as well,” said Pietro Cesaro, Sales General Manager of Cesaro Mac. Import. In the future, HERAmbiente SpA, the largest waste treatment company in Italy, will operate the plant. HERAmbiente SpA was looking for the most efficient and most economical solution for treating and processing the organic fraction of collected household waste in the plant of Sant’Agata Bolognese. For this reason, it invited a very selective tender, in which Cesaro Mac. Import and HZI’s Kompogas® technology offered the most convincing proposal, both technologically and economically.
Precise planning
A total of four PF1800 steel digesters are to be erected on the site of the existing composting facility of Nuova Geovis SpA. For HZI, this delivery for a project for one of the leading waste treatment companies in Italy marks a new milestone. “We see the realization of this project together with Cesaro Mac. Import as a vote of confidence in HZI’s positioning in the market as a supplier of the first-class Kompogas® technology,” said Hitachi Zosen Inova CEO Franz-Josef Mengede. He added that the planning phase centered also on determining the most effective means of construction to achieve the ideal placement of the digesters in the limited space available on the site. “Together we managed to address both the local circumstances and the specific needs of the client,” said Pietro Cesaro, Cesaro Mac. Import’s Commercial Director, about the successful collaboration.
Adding value for the region
The four Kompogas® steel digesters will in future process 100,000 tonnes of biowaste (FORSU) per year, so producing biogas and high-quality compost. 14,287,000 Nm3/a of biogas or 71,050 MWh/a net will be fed into the grid. This will benefit, among others, the surrounding municipalities and also Bologna’s public transport company, which will use the generated biogas to fuel its fleet. By way of comparison, the volumes produced will thus be sufficient for a car to drive around the earth 1,996 times or to heat some 5,000 households.
Meanwhile the 30,000 tonnes of quality compost produced in the presswater-free plant will be sold to farms and garden centers in the region.
After receiving all the building permits required, the initial building work is set to begin in summer 2016, with the construction for the core module delivered by HZI scheduled to start in fall 2016.
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