Publish Date : 12-Aug-2013
Enel Green Power, a world leader in the renewable energy sector, and COPROB, the leading sugar beet producer in the country, assisted by financial advisor Valore e Capitale Srl, an investment banking firm specialising in the renewable energy sector, have signed a partnership agreement. Through Enel Green Power's acquisition of 70% of Domus Energia, a COPROB Group company, the partners have begun work on building a 12.5 MW power plant in Finale Emilia (in the province of Modena) that will be fuelled by agricultural biomass. From now onwards, Domus Energia should be called Enel Green Power Finale Emilia.
The accord represents a further step in Enel Green Power's strategy for expansion in Italy's biomass sector, as well as enabling the COPROB Group to complete the complex process of reorganizing and converting sugar refineries closed in 2006, following the EU's reform of the sugar market.
Enel Green Power's expertise in the renewable energy sector, coupled with COPROB's proven ability to supply the agricultural raw material, provide further assurances of the plant's efficiency and productivity, all to the benefit of the development of the Modena area and in full compliance with the national targets for renewable resources.
"The COPROB Group is proud to be able to complete the process of converting the former sugar refinery in Finale Emilia," commented Claudio Gallerani, President of COPROB, "a project on which we have been working for a long time. It has involved a complex administrative and business process requiring close dialogue with national and local institutions, with residents and with the members of the cooperative, who are preparing to plant 3,000 hectares of fibre sorghum (a plant used in crop rotation), which will be used to fuel this power plant in years to come, along with the by-products of other agricultural activities, such as straw, stalks and prunings."
"In concluding this agreement, which envisages an investment of more than 60 million euros, Enel Green Power is demonstrating its willingness to expand locally sourced biomass, the meeting point between the worlds of agriculture and energy," commented Francesco Starace, CEO and General Manager of EGP. "Promoting local biomass means developing the territory around the plant and enhancing the value chain by encouraging the cultivation of crops best suited for energy generation and by exploiting the by-products of existing productive activities to the greatest extent possible."
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