On Wednesday, April 12, the first biomethane plant in Italy in a Grappa Distillerie was inaugurated, at Distillerie Bonollo Umberto S.p.a. plant in Conselve (Padua). The event was attended by Elvio Bonollo, representative of the fourth generation of entrepreneurs, and Pier Lorenzo Dell’Orco, Italgas Reti CEO.

The new plant produces biomethane using liquid residuals from distillation activities. The average daily amount is about 10,000 cubic meters of biomethane, corresponding to about 2.5 million cubic meters per year. In a circular economy approach, this process enables to replace an equivalent amount of fossil gas and to distribute it directly to households and businesses through the grid, with important benefits in terms of consumption decarbonization.

The project implementation resulted from the convergence between Bonollo‘s production approach, inspired circular economy and zero waste principles, and Italgas‘ distribution network digital transformation, an enabling element for the development of renewable gases.

The initiative, in line with best practices in France and Germany, is consistent with the roadmap outlined by the REPowerEU, which assigns biomethane the task of replacing 25% of fossil-derived natural gas from Russia and distributing it to EU countries.

It took 16 months of work to enable the technological upgrade of the previous biogas production plant and to build the connection to inject biomethane into the Italgas network.

The service connection for Distillerie Bonollo uses the DANA (Digital Advanced Network Automation) application, which allows continuous monitoring of the quality of the gas fed into the network as well as remote management of the injection point, with the possibility of giving the plant orders and instructions for flow regulation.

Today it is possible to produce methane gas from biological waste and introduce it into the distribution network, after proper treatments, by mixing it together with gas from natural sources. That’s the origin of biomethane, a blend composed by 97% of methane, a gas that would otherwise leak into the atmosphere with the natural decomposition of food and agricultural waste. Biomethane virtuous circle comes to life from the recovery of vegetable field waste, such as tomatoes, vineyards or even olive mills, and has a significant impact for the economy and the environment.