Over 15,000 photovoltaic panels, an installed capacity of 8.6 MW, covering an area of 137,000 square metres, will produce about 15 GWh each year, covering the entire electricity needs of the historic Ichnusa brewery in Assemini. These are the figures for the photovoltaic park built by ENGIE Italia for HEINEKEN Italia, which has just come into operation.
This solution, implemented within the production site, is particularly relevant for a plant like the brewery, which can thus count on a stable, competitive and low-emission source.
The project stems from the collaboration between ENGIE Italia and HEINEKEN Italia, which have signed a 15-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), confirming an increasingly widespread partnership model to support companies in the energy transition process. Long-term price stabilisation mechanisms, such as PPAs, make it possible to protect producers and industries from gas price volatility by establishing stable economic conditions in the medium and long term.
The plant is part of the evolution and improvement of the Ichnusa brewery, which is already the subject of a major investment plan launched in 2021.
In Italy, large photovoltaic plants, over 1 MW, directly serving industrial sites are still not very common. This is why the Assemini project stands out as one of the main examples of on-site renewable production directly connected to a production plant, where the integration of production and consumption represents a concrete lever for reducing environmental impact and improving energy efficiency.
“The partnership with HEINEKEN Italia is a concrete example of how we support our industrial customers in the energy transition, offering solutions that combine sustainability and competitiveness,” said Monica Iacono, CEO of ENGIE Italia. “Thanks to tools such as PPAs and on-site solutions, we are able to guarantee companies long-term price stability, with overall savings of between 20% and 25%. At ENGIE, we are developing initiatives like this throughout Italy, with the aim of reaching 200 MW of installed capacity by 2030. This is the value of projects like the one in Assemini: accelerating decarbonisation, strengthening the energy resilience of companies and, at the same time, focusing on energy efficiency to reduce operating costs and maximise the use of resources.”
With a view to further strengthening the efficiency of the energy system at the Assemini site, ENGIE Italia and HEINEKEN Italia are considering the introduction of battery storage solutions, which will allow the renewable energy produced during the day to be stored and made available even at times of lower generation. The development of storage will make the integration between renewable production and industrial consumption even more effective.“At the Ichnusa brewery in Assemini, together with ENGIE, we have inaugurated one of the largest photovoltaic systems built in Italy within a production site: a project that allows us to produce clean energy locally, covering 100% of our daytime needs,” added Alexander Koch, CEO of HEINEKEN Italia. “It is an important step in our company’s sustainable growth journey and a benchmark among the HEINEKEN Group’s photovoltaic projects in Europe. The Sardinian sun has always been there when you drink an Ichnusa. And from today, this sun also accompanies the way we produce it”.
