Brescia, October 2023 – A2A CEO Renato Mazzoncinimet the Italian and international financial community this morning at the Outdoor Investor Day, organized in Brescia. During the event, analysts and institutional investors delved into the Company's development path within the circular economy, a strategic pillar of A2A's 2021-2030 Business plan together with the energy transition.
On the Circular Economy front, the A2A Group has already invested more than 1 billion euroin the two-year period 2021-2022 and it envisages total capital expenditures of around 5 billion euro in the 2021-2030 Plan, focusing on the closure of the waste cycle, recovery of materials, energy and heat and bioenergy development.
During the event, the activities of the waste-to-energy plant in Brescia and of the wastewater treatment plant in Verziano were discussed in detail.
Each year, the waste-to-energy plant in Brescia recovers electricity and heat from around 730,000 tons of waste not recyclable otherwise, thus avoiding its disposal in landfills andthe use of fossil fuels to heat and light the city. In operation since 1998, the plant runs on three lines and generates over 70% of the energy distributed by the district heating network. It also generates enough electricity to meet the needs of 200,000 households. In numbers: the plant produces 600 GWh of electricity and 900 GWh of thermal energy per year, avoiding 735 thousand tons of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere and saving 177 thousand tons of oil equivalent. Each combustion line has a dedicated flue gas treatment and emissions are controlled through a 24-hour monitoring system. All the emissions are well below the limits set in the Integrated Environmental Authorization (IEA). Concerning the investments in efficiency and sustainability, the last phase of the “flue gas cleaning condensation” project for the new flue gas treatment and energy recovery systems is currently underway. This technology will make 164 GWh/year of additional heat available to the district heating network with zero environmental impact, as it is generated without increasing the amount of waste treated, bringing the plant's efficiency to 97%. In addition, with this investment of over €100 million, heat, equal to the needs of 12,500 homes, will be recovered from the flue gas of the waste-to-energy plant. At the same time, emissions will be further cut through the installation of a “tail-end” Selective-Catalytic-Reduction de-Nox plant.
The Verziano purification plant, located south of the city, can treat wastewater for up to 290,000 Population Equivalent for an average flow of 65,000 m3 of water per day. Built in 1980 and subject to numerous renovations and upgrades, the purification plant consists of three sections: a pre-treatment station; an equalization and homogenization tank; an activated sludge biological compartment for the removal of biological components and nutrients. The latter consists of two traditional CAS (Conventional Activated Sludge) treatment lines and an MBR (Membrane Biological Reactor) line. A part of the wastewater is in fact subject to microfiltration, in order to raise the quality standard of the purified water.
The treated wastewater is returned to the environment in the ‘Fiume di Verziano’ basin, while the sewage sludge is sent to the sludge line for energy recovery through anaerobic digestion with biogas production. Finally, the biogas is sent to the cogeneration station (CHP) for the production of electricity and thermal energy, in a perfect process of circular economy: the electricity produced by the station satisfies 10% of the consumption of the entire plant and 60% of the energy needs of the anaerobic digesters.
The sludge, after a dewatering phase, is sent to the waste-to-energy plant, where it is burnt to produce energy.
Event documentation will be available on the website of the company on today's date.
Contacts
Giuseppe Mariano
Head of Media Relations, Social Networking and Web
Press office
ufficiostampa@a2a.it
Tel. [+39] 02 77204535
Marco Porro
Investor Relations Manager
ir@a2a.it
Tel. 02 7720.3974
