Sustainability

Distributed generation

For many years people have been talking about “distributed generation” and “energy self-production”, i.e. energy production physically close to users. Recently the following concepts have become more relevant and up-to-date:
• The liberalization of the gas and electric energy market
• The fact that electric energy is unable to satisfy the high demand and the subsequent planned black out
• The problem of reducing pollutants emissions into the atmosphere
• The community support towards renewable energy sources or sources that improve the efficiency of fossil sources
• The possibility, by producing energy close to the users, to plan cogeneration, which leads to a better energy efficiency, reduced transmission losses and distribution and a sensitive reduction of emissions into the atmosphere
• Lower costs of investments thanks to the smaller size of plants
• The chance to electrify remote areas
• The possibility to make a Country less vulnerable to the fluctuation of fossil fuel value (it was calculated that in Italy, by doubling cogeneration by 2010, 20% of imported gas would be reduced) 
It is more and more important to develop, as well as an energy-centralized production, small power plants (i.e. micro-generation), located on the territory and built with technologies that combine efficiency and low emissions with cheap investments and excellent reliability.