The project won the competition 99 Ideas for Sulcis focusing on development projects for Sulcis held by the Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry of Territorial Cohesion, the Region of Sardinia, the Province of Carbonia-Iglesias and the municipalities of Sulcis-Iglesiente.
The Hub, which is fully managed by Renovo, is composed of:
- a cogeneration plant with a capacity of 999 kWe and 4 MWth The cogeneration plant is fuelled by locally produced forestry biomass (from woods located in Sulcis) and agro-industrial waste and by-products.
- a plant that produces wood and cork fibre thermal insulation panels The panels are also produced from processed wood harvested during woodland maintenance and from cork harvested from traditional Sardinian cork plantations.
- a green construction technology and materials research centre
n keeping with our vision, we designed the biodistrict to combine industry, the environment and the social fabric. From an environmental standpoint, sourcing activities will result in proper maintenance of woodlands, exploitation of marginal land and use of agro-industrial waste, and thus will make a valuable contribution to fire prevention. In addition, several prized local resources such as cork, eucalyptus and pine will be economically exploited, yielding benefits for those involved in producing these resources.
The two plants are also synergistically integrated: on the one hand, the scrap resulting from production of the panels is used as energy biomass, while on the other the thermal energy is used to dry out the virgin wood used to produce the panels, thus increasing the project’s energy and resource efficiency. A portion of the thermal energy is also sold to an adjacent company through district heating. The founding partner of the initiative is the San Lorenzo Social Cooperative of Iglesias, one of the largest third sector organisations in the Sulcis area.