Enel Green Power and the Marcegaglia Group today signed an agreement for the installation of a photovoltaic system with a capacity of more than 4 MW on the roof-tops of the industrial facilities of the Marcegaglia Group, a world leader in the steel processing industry and, among other operations, also active in the production of energy from renewables.
The project, one of the largest innovative technology roof-top systems in Italy, will be implemented in Taranto on the roof-tops of the Marcegaglia Group’s plants, fully integrating the system into the existing architecture. The system will be mostly equipped with innovative flexible thin-film amorphous silicon photovoltaic modules. It is scheduled to start operating in 2010.
Once fully operational, the system – owned 51% by Enel Green Power and 49% by Marcegaglia Group – will be able to produce over 5 million kWh annually, enough to meet the energy needs of approximately 1,900 households, thereby avoiding the atmospheric emission of some 4,000 tons of CO2 per year.
"We are very pleased to have reached this agreement", said Francesco Starace, Chairman of Enel Green Power, "with the first concrete implementation at the Taranto facilities of Marcegaglia, a major group that, like us, understands the considerable potential for the development of photovoltaics. Enel Green Power has an ambitious growth plan and a substantial pipeline of photovoltaic projects in Italy and abroad: this agreement enables us to further strengthen our presence in the steadily expanding domestic market, in which we firmly believe."
“The agreement with Enel Green Power", remarked Antonio Marcegaglia, Chief Executive Officer of the Marcegaglia Group, "is a significant one both for its scale and because it is the first project to be developed with Enel Green Power as part of the broader collaborative initiatives that our groups could pursue in the photovoltaic sector and in energy generation from renewables. An important part of the plant will be implemented with the BrolloSolar photovoltaic panel, manufactured in our Taranto facility, with which we have already carried out major roof systems, among the largest in Italy.”
Enel Green Power is the Enel Group company devoted to the development and management of power generation from renewable resources at the international level, with presence in Europe and the Americas. It is the European leader in its industry thanks to 17.2 billion kWh of electricity generated from water, the sun, wind power and the heat of the earth, enough to meet the annual consumption needs of some 6.5 million households and avoid the emission of 13 million tonnes of CO2 each year.
The company’s installed capacity totals about 4,700 MW, produced by more than 500 plants in operation around the world, with a generation mix that includes wind energy, solar, hydro, geothermal and biomass.
The core business of the Marcegaglia Group, wholly owned by the family of the same name, is steel processing. With 6,500 employees and 50 manufacturing plants in Italy, Europe, the Americas and Asia, it operates in markets around the world.
As part of its diversified activities, Marcegaglia Energy is the business unit devoted to generating electricity from renewable resources. It has been operating since 1995 in power generation from biomass and refuse- derived fuel (Euro Energy Group). In 2006 it introduced photovoltaic technologies: with Arendi in the area of thin-film on glass substrates and with Marcegaglia Buildtech for flexible thin-film systems.
