Batteries for industry, Proteo (Marchesini) project for Florim

Proteo Engineering (an 80%-owned company of the Bologna-based Marchesini Group) has realised a 5 MWh battery electric storage system integrated with a solar plant at the Fiorano Modenese factory for the ceramic company Florim: it is expected to be operational by February. It will be used to store the excess electricity produced by Florim's four on-site photovoltaic plants - built between 2021 and 2025 - during the day, to then make it usable in the production process during the night, thus reducing the purchase of energy from the outside and at the same time reducing the pressure on the grid through self-consumption.

Supporting this project, together with Claudio Lucchese, president of Florim, is Maurizio Marchesini, majority shareholder of Proteo Engineering and president of the Marchesini Group, international champion of pharmaceutical and cosmetic packaging solutions, who explains: "We have created the missing link between non-programmable renewable energies and the needs of industry, which has to work even when there is no sun or wind. The storage system is important for energy-hungry companies such as the ceramics industry and many other types of industry". Marchesini recounts how Proteo, which started out as a company specialising in automation, "is moving towards energy, because it is increasingly strategic. And with regard to storage systems like this one, he confirms a great deal of interest and, for Proteo, 'about ten projects with other companies, even though they have just started'. On the regulatory framework front, there is not much momentum, 'but we count on seeing the implementing decree on the hyper-amortisation within the week, which should contain an incentive for energy savings,' he indicates.

For a company like Florim, the storage system helps to limit energy costs and avoid production stoppages, increasing its independence: "Already today, with the solar plants and cogenerators, in optimal weather conditions, we are able to power 100% of the two Italian factories in Fiorano and Mordano during daylight hours. Now with the possibility of retaining the surplus energy produced we will also be able to power them at night. I don't exclude that we can think about installing other storage systems in the future," says president Claudio Lucchese, who on the necessary investment speaks of "5-6 million euro, between the last solar plant and now the battery". To Lucchese's knowledge, the one in Fiorano is the first of its kind in the global ceramic industry, and the first one so large installed in this segment.

Looking ahead, the project takes on a broader significance: 'European manufacturing can only remain competitive if it returns to thinking in long-term industrial terms. Investing in advanced energy infrastructure today means defending production, employment and the ability to stay in global markets tomorrow,' Marchesini comments. 'In a country like Italia,' he continues, 'where electricity is among the most expensive for industry but the sun is a structural resource, the challenge is not to produce more, but to govern better. This is where a decisive industrial policy game is being played: building energy autonomy, reducing dependence on markets, and giving companies back the ability to plan their future'.