The future of renewables in Europe, in particularly in Italy, will have to face a significant increase in the use of biomasses.
Unlike other renewable sources such as wind and solar power, biomasses produce planned energy. Moreover, their nature resembles conventional fuels (solid, liquid and gaseous state) and is suitable for optimized uses in co-generation plants.
However, technological investments have not been made in thebiomass sector, from production to its final uses, nor have planning tools and economic funds been made available to launch this type of renewable energy source.Instead, any opportunity for national supply has been abandoned and supplies have been obtained from the international markets, often accompanied by deforestation that is harmful to the environment with a negative cost/benefit ratio for energy.Lastly, also aid mechanisms have only privileged electricity production, neglecting the possibility of also generating thermal energy and increasing the plantproduction output (over 10 MWe), in a way that is not compatible with a direct production process and with co-generation use once funding stops.The same plant output hascreated in the local authorities the doubt that the actual production plant could then be used for waste disposal (wastes include a waste disposal tariff, while biomasses have a purchase cost) and this has led to a total refusal by the community.
In order to solve all the problems of the past and provide a significant response to producing energy from biomasses, the ICQ Group launched its own strategy based on three aspects:

• Direct production process for using national wood/cellulose biomasses in co-generation plants between 1 and 5 MWe;
• Direct production process for using Energy Crops in anaerobic digestion plants from 0.5 to 2 MWe;
• Direct-indirect production processes for the use of vegetable oils replacing conventional fuels (methane – gasoil) in optimized situations.

The ICQ Group is implementing a large investment plan for biomass exploitation for energy uses.

As of today, two biomass to liquid co-generation plants were built in the province of Verona (S. Giovanni Ilarione and San Giovanni Lupatoto) and a plant fuelled by anaerobic digestion biogas from manure and agricultural products in Cicerale (Sa).

The plan includes building plants to reach 25 MW of installed power within 2012. These will be mostly wood/cellulose biomass plants that use innovative technology and anaerobic digestion plants from organic agricultural products and by-products. The ICQ Group’s strong commitment in the biomass sector is also confirmed by the investments made for developing a research ETAP plan (Environmental Technologies Action Plan) aimed to planning, developing, building and managing a plant that uses innovative technology (S.I.A.G. - Sistema Integrato Avanzato di Glassificazione) for pyrogasification. The plant, located in Torre S. Susanna (BR), has an installed power of approximately 500 kWe. During the year 2010 the gross production of electric energy of the ICQ Group obtained from biomass plants will be of approximately 20 GWh.