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The first facility in Italy and Europe to supply energy from the vine has been inaugurated on September 15 at the Lungarotti Winery in Torgiano (PG). It is the climax of an innovative programme of applied research that over two years has brought about the creation of a pilot facility for recovering energy from vineyard pruning by-products. The project is a collaboration between the renowned Umbrian winery and the Centro Ricerca sulle Biomasse dell’Università di Perugia (CRB) (Perugia University’s biomass research centre). The actual switching-on was preceded by the technical presentation of Professor Franco Cotana head of the CRB, who illustrated the facility in the presence of the Hon. Antonio Buonfiglio, undersecretary of the Agriculture Minister, of representatives from local Institutions and of Mr. Federico Vecchioni, National President of Confagricultura. This event represents the beginning of a new era in the field of energy sources.

key project statistics
inauguration: 15 Sep. 2008
Boiler
power output:		 400kW
Biomass
availability:		 200 ton/year
Yearly energy
production:		 720 MWh
Share of total
company energy
requirement:		 40%

Img27The Torgiano facility stems from the programme of agricultural energy called “ERAASPV – Energia Rinnovabile per le Aziende Agricole derivante da scarti di Potature dei Vigneti” (renewable energy for agricultural concerns from vineyard pruning by-products) co-financed by the Ministry of Agriculture, while being designed and created by the CRB, an international point of reference for research on bio-fuels for energy use, set up by the Ministry of the Environment at the University of Perugia.

Lungarotti has already shown in many initiatives its ecological vein and its constant attention to the environment and to preserving the territory. This unique sensitivity favoured the selection of Lungarotti for the pilot project in 2006. The site was also highly suitable: the more than 250 hectares of Lungarotti vineyards guarantee a critical mass that is suitable for the project’s requirements.

During the experimental phase, Lungarotti was able to increase and optimize the volume of by-products and has now reached a significant level of productivity at extremely low cost. In certain parts of the vineyards the yield of biomass has reached 1.25 tons per hectare at 40% humidity. The company can therefore count on more than 200 tons per year of biomass.

Thanks to this material and to the unique furnace type selected to optimize it, the Torgiano company is able to produce 720 MW-h/year, enough to completely fulfil the thermal consumption of the company (which currently produces about 2.8 million bottles of wine annually) that is, hot water at 80°C for winter heating; water at 95°C and steam for bottle sterilization; cold water at 7°C for summer air conditioning; chilled water as cold as -10°C for conditioning the stainless steel vats. The system also covers approximately 30% of the electrical consumption of the refrigerating machines.

In the future, within the second phase of the project, an expansion of the facility for producing a further 50 KW of electrical energy and the installation of other refrigerating machinery will recover all the heat currently produced. In this way the company will reach complete energy independence, consequently reaching zero emissions of CO2.