Two years after the commissioning of the first 1 MW / p photovoltaic system, the Sugherificio Peppino Molinas & Figli , located in  Calangianus -Sardinia- starts the installation of a second plant for the production of 1 MW photovoltaic energy / p, again making use of the project support by Enrico Rainero SmartEfficiency.

 

The PV will provide an additional 20% of the energy required for production, given the strong electrical consumption of the plant. For this reason, it was decided to install high-performance monocrystalline silicon panels which, despite being high-end in terms of price, will be able to maximize production, exploiting the most of the usable spaces.

The previous installation, whose productivity has been higher than the foreseen 1.351 kW/h for 1.000 kW/p, during the operation period, allowed to reduce carbon dioxide output by up to 600 tons annually.

One of the last installations in our factory is a brand new biomass boiler for the thermal production needed for the processing of the bark of cork trees, which uses the production waste and the wood deriving from the cleaning cuts of the cork woods, thus characterizing the circular economy strategies in its production cycle

Finally, with the replacement of the previous lighting fixtures with LED lamps in all the departments, it has reduced electricity consumption and increased the quality of lighting for the benefit of visual comfort and the fatigue of the employees involved to the selection of the final products, reducing the carbon dioxide output by up to  120 tons annually.

The Molinas family said: “in the last years  our family has felt the responsibility to start considerable investments to make the company's business more efficient and sustainable, by redesigning and modernizing a large part of the production cycle of cork stoppers and of the cork for green building, combining the natural characteristics of our products with the needs of consumers, increasingly attentive to quality and respect for the environment, especially in the products that reach our tables."

Enrico Rainero, founder of SmartEfficiency, states: "It has been a great satisfaction to support the Molinas family in the company's energy efficiency choices: our strategy was focused first on evaluating the production steps and the related energy needs, and then installing the most modern technologies both to reduce consumption and to produce energy from renewable sources for self-consumption.

Besides to the energy savings, we met the expectations of the Molinas family in their sensitivity to eco-sustainability and to the continuous improvement of their product, the cork stopper, an important component connected since ancient times to the quality of the Italian wines."