I’ll tell you about Italy’s failure on geothermal energy

25 December 20203 years ago babelfish

In Italy, geothermal energy is used very little, despite the fact that we have "hot" areas in Tuscany, Campania and Sicily. Here are the proposals of the Italian Geothermal Union

Geothermal energy could be an important renewable source for Italy but in reality it is exploited very little compared to its potential and to what other countries do that have a land morphology suitable for this type of source.

HOW IS EUROPE

In Europe, for example, there is an installed thermal capacity of around 24.3 GWth, including over 2 million geothermal probe installations and over 300 distribution networks for heating and cooling.

HOT ZONES IN ITALY

In Italy the 'hot' areas are Tuscany , with its geothermal fields of Larderello but which extends to the caldera of Bolsena and then into the sea for several kilometers, the Campi Flegrei, in Campania, the southern Tyrrhenian and the Sicilian channel. , in the area of the submerged volcano Empedocle and Lampedusa.

But not only. In Italy, geothermal energy is also present in other areas of the country such as upper Lazio, Liguria, western Sardinia and Piedmont. Our country was one of the first in the world to invest in this source of clean energy, so much so that the first power plant was inaugurated in the early twentieth century in Tuscany, right in Larderello.
At the moment the most important and productive geothermal plants are in fact those on Monte Amiata, in particular the plants of Larderello, Travale and Radicondoli and the Tuscan ones of Grosseto, Pisa and Siena. The total installed power is equal to 1,372 MW, which is used for domestic heating 42%, thermal uses 32%, aquaculture 18%, agriculture 7%, industrial uses 1%.

Very interesting and promising discoveries have also been made in southern Italy. For example, in Campania, in the Campi Flegrei and Ischia areas alone, deposits with a potential of over 17 GW have been identified.

IN THE LAST 10 YEARS ONLY ONE AUTHORIZED PLANT

At the moment, however, if we look at the last 10 years, only one plant of Enel of Monte Amiata of 25MW has been authorized, as confirmed by Fabio Roggiolani, founder of Giga, the Informal Group for Geothermal and Environment: "All the requests of new 10 MW binary cycle plants are stopped at the pole. Requests for 200MW are at a standstill and the sector in general is in a very serious crisis with the exception of the low enthalpy which is now in a phase of enormous development ”.

THE PROTESTS OF AGNANO

In some cases there have also been protests against geothermal energy such as those that occurred in Pozzuoli and precisely in the Agnano-Pisciarelli area. Protests, among other things, carried out by the Greens who blocked the project, as recalled by an article in the Corriere del Mezzogiorno a few months ago. The reason? The alarm of the population for the resumption of the bradyseismic phenomenon (movements of the ground up or down). In the past, another project had also been started in the area, the Scarfoglio project which involved the construction of a geothermal power plant. According to the volcanologist Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo consulted by the Greens, in fact, “the drilling works, with consequent inputs and aspirations of fluids, can give rise to simic activities and phreatic-type explosions”.

And in fact, the councilor Francesco Borrelli wrote on his social network: “The Region will give the ok to stop drilling requested by the Municipality of Pozzuoli. We protested about what happened by meeting the regional councilor for production activities Antonio Marchiello, we stigmatized these operations in Agnano and after explaining the critical issues related to this type of drilling, I was informed of the decision to suspend the authorization, as requested. from the Municipality of Pozzuoli. There are too many dangers associated with this type of experiments which among other things the population has not been informed. It is a fact that geothermal experiments involving drilling should not be conducted in that area, it is a densely populated area with very high risk ”.
A sign, in short, that despite being a clean and renewable source, there are in large portions of society some obstacles to its use, even by environmentalists.

THE PROPOSALS OF THE ITALIAN GEOTHERMAL UNION

According to the Italian Geothermal Union, however, it is necessary to intervene to advance the sector. Among the proposals that have been formulated are the extension of subsidized VAT, currently available only to domestic district heating users, to other types of users; the increase in the tax credit on the costs incurred by users for connection to the district heating networks; the implementation of funds intended to incentivize geothermal plants for heating the domestic, industrial and agricultural sectors, making them competitive with respect to plants that use energy from fossil and imported sources; the completion of the procedure for the issue of the “probe installation” decree which provides for simplified measures for the authorization of closed-circuit GSHP plants, and establishes a mandatory inventory of the plants; the start of work to issue the regulations for GSHP open circuit systems, and to avoid regional regulations referring to regulations unsuitable for the context; the investment in Research and Development of high innovative value, to improve the technical-economic performance of the plants and to develop and test advanced thermal storage systems in the subsoil; the promotion of the organization of courses for the certification of installers, as required by European directives.

Article taken from Energia Oltre.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/vi-racconto-il-fallimento-dellitalia-sulla-geotermia/ on Fri, 25 Dec 2020 06:43:36 +0000.