Geothermal wood chip drying plant opens in Tuscany, Italy

Palazzo Comunale at Monterotondo Marittimo, Italy (source: Mongolo1984, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Carlo Cariaga 7 Apr 2023

A new wood chip drying plant utilizing geothermal energy has been opened in the municipality of Monterotondo Marittimo in Tuscany, Italy. Producing about 200 quintals of wood chips per day, the geothermal drying facility makes biomass production more sustainable and distributes the benefits of geothermal energy beyond the typical geographical constraints of the resource.

The wood chip drying plant is managed by the Best Local Energy Consortium and is located in the Podere Paterndo dairy arm, where geothermal heat is already being harnessed for cheese production. The wood chips are obtained from virgin remains and twigs of the forest that are not functional for any other uses of the wood.

Hot water at 85 degrees Celsius is supplied by a geothermal facility of Enel Green Power. This hot water goes through a water-air heat exchanger, transferring the the heat to the air used for drying the biomass. The water leaves the heat exchanger at 60 degrees Celsius before it is reinjected into the subsurface.

The biomass project in Monterotondo Marittimo is one of the several ways that value-adding applications are being developed for geothermal energy in Tuscany. In early 2023, Enel Green Power signed an agreement to transfer CO2 from the Valle Secolo geothermal power plant to Lampo Greegas, a company that sells and distributes CO2 for industrial uses.

Eugenio Giani, the President of the Tuscany Region, stated that Tuscany generates a total of 5,913 GWh of geothermal energy annually. This corresponds to the consumption of more than 2 million people and provides heat to 10,000 users.

Source: Toscana Media