ENERGY RECOVERY FROM BIOMASS IN THE LANGHE AND ROERO DISTRICT

The decision to consider the biogas from the anaerobic digestion was taken considering that the use of other engineering solutions (i.e. incinerators, pyrolysis plants, large photovoltaic plants) could hardly find a positive response in the Langhe and Roero district since this area has strong agricultural and food traditions and a constant attention to the environmental preservation. In this frame it was decided not to consider other possible scenarios coming both from the use of so-called "energy crops" and from changes in land exploitation. Also livestock manure has not been taken into account to avoid resorting to alternative solutions for field fertilization. In such conditions, it is possible to recover 81,864 MWhe/y coming from landfilled MSW (11.0%), the organic fraction of the separated collection (0.4%), livestock effluents (43.2%), agricultural wastes (42.4%) and unused agricultural area exploitation (3.0%). Considering the local population (166,065 inhabitants) this amount becomes 0.49 MWhe/inhabitant·y that represents, almost the 50% of the domestic consumptions.