Energy efficiency savings at operating speed in the year
Over the next four years the 43.5 MWe vegetable biomass plant in Porto Torres (one of the biggest plants in the world with an investment of over 220 million euro), currently in the authorization phase, is expected to become operational, and the refurbishment of the Bolgiano plant (€54 million euro), which will guarantee further improvements in emission rates, will be completed. The Porto Torres plant will be in operation at Matrìca’s Green Chemistry Hub and will guarantee the effective reuse of thistle waste.
In order to exploit biomass energy, eni in the medium-term is focusing on the production of biofuels derived from urban and industrial waste and from the conversion of cellulosic biomass, with the aim of obtaining energy vectors that fully comply with the stringent sustainability criteria established by the European Union. In the long term, eni plans to make the process of producing bio-oils from biomass more competitive and to develop synthetic biology technologies in order to produce new biofuels and intermediates for the chemical sector. The “Biomass Energy” research programme groups together all the activities connected with exploiting the energy potential of biomass and its main objective is to pilot on a wider scale the two transformation processes developed at the eni-Donegani Research Centre. Moreover, in 2013 the first energy efficiency project in the E&P sector was launched. This project will study the possibility of reducing the energy consumed in the production of crude oil (currently around 3.7 barrels out of 100).
