BiRemi™ Finale Emilia: the 0 km green gas enabling project with AS Retigas

A bi-directional network section will be built in Finale Emilia thanks to the installation of a BiRemi™ plant at the existing REMI Polo Industriale cabin. It follows a pilot project applied for by AS Retigas in response to ARERA resolution (404/2022/R/gas – Pilot projects to optimise the management and use of infrastructures in the natural gas sector), admitted for funding of over 1 million euros (ARERA resolution 590/2023/R/GAS).

The commissioning will be followed by two years of experimentation (from December 2024 to December 2026) during which AS Retigas and Pietro Fiorentini technicians will collaborate for the success of the initiative. In the area involved in the experimentation, in fact, there are several biogas production plants that are either agricultural or operate under a waste regime. The biogas produced by the plants is currently, for the most part, converted into electricity and heat through combustion in cogeneration engines. Only a few are already upgrading to biomethane, but further similar plants are planned to be started up in the coming years, as well as the conversion of those in the electricity regime to biomethane production.

Thanks to this initiative, promoted by ARERA, AS Retigas will be able to accept all biomethane produced by local plants into its local distribution networks, allowing producers to connect to the local distribution network with a lower technical and economic effort, thus giving feed-in and transport priority to gas from renewable sources of national production.

Collaboration and dialogue with SNAM will also be indispensable, for all the innovative technical and regulatory aspects in the reverse compression operation, from the local to the national grid: a regulatory innovation destined to become a widespread technology throughout Italy.

The technological partner of the project is Pietro Fiorentini, which will be responsible for the design, supply, management, and maintenance of the plant, as well as being actively involved in the experimentation, the core of the project.

Francesco Fortuna, Italy Country Manager of Pietro Fiorentini, commented: “The signing of the agreement it’s a turning point: biomethane producers will be able to access the gas distribution networks more easily than now, significantly reducing the current time and operating costs. Pietro Fiorentini and AS Retigas set a milestone to favour local energy production over imports from abroad: it will be fundamental to push energy independence at a national level, and to contribute decisively to the injection of 2.3 billion cubic metres of biomethane into the grid by December 2026.”

Riccardo Castorri, President and CEO of AS Retigas, explained: “The release of the ARERA resolution opened up innovative solutions in the world of gas distribution. Even before, our company had thought about this hypothesis driven also by the awareness of the presence of many biogas producers in our municipalities. The producers repeatedly expressed their interest in a local network dedicated to this function, as it is close to and touches production sites. Then the project developed, followed by the identification of a technological partner. Optimally assessed by ARERA, the project will see a solid partnership with Pietro Fiorentini, a company with which I am sure we will be able to build and export a new distribution model that can be replicated throughout Italy.”