Installation of high efficiency fuel cells within the ACEA Pinerolese waste treatment site: an energy and economic analysis

Energy transition is a crucial topic in the modern society and is the only way to act against climate change and shift towards a more sustainable and efficient energy paradigm. In this framework, one of the most promising ways to generate energy vector without creating a negative impact on the environment requires the implementation of waste-to-energy processes. Among them, biogas plays an important role since it represent an energy vector easy to process and store and is compatible with most of the current final uses, included ICEs and gas boilers. This document provides a description of the main technologies involved in the production of biogas and its possible final utilizations (chapter 2). Then in the following chapter an overview of the different biogas production policies adopted by different European nations is reported, with a special focus on the Italian policy and the Biomethane decree of 2018. In the fourth chapter a real case study is considered, the plant of Acea Pinerolese is described and the different input and output streams are characterized. The energetic balance of the plant is studied, and different future possible development of the plant are proposed. In the fifth chapter different possible plant layouts are considered, and the technical and economic methods used to compare them are explained. The results of the energetic and economic analysis are reported in the sixth chapter, while in the seventh the main conclusions of this work are presented.