In recent years, energy supply has become a central issue for any economic activity as well as for private citizens. The issue of the cost of energy and that of the environmental sustainability of its production, in particular the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions due to fossil fuels, have forcefully entered the public conversation.
Agricultural and tourist activities are characterized by generally seasonal energy consumption, but no less impactful on the economic balance sheets of the activities themselves and ultimately on the CO2 emissions due to energy production.
As part of the activities that take place at Villa Selvatico da Porto, we have always considered energy saving as a first form of respect for environmental sustainability, and in this sense we have implemented all those actions that could reduce energy consumption, from efficiency of lighting systems and heating systems.
However, following the energy crisis that characterized the first phase of the Russia-Ukraine war, we posed the problem of how we could also become energy producers, in order to self-produce a substantial portion of our annual electricity consumption through renewable energy, drawing from it an economic benefit for the company and at the same time contributing to a reduction in CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. We found the answer in the PNRR "Parco Agrisolare" tender, which encouraged the installation of photovoltaic systems on the roofs of buildings for agricultural and agritourism use. Therefore, in March 2024 we were able to install photovoltaic panels on the roof of the farmhouse building for a total power of 24.5 kW peak, and at the same time we equipped ourselves with storage systems for a power of 40 kW.
Even though only a few months have passed since the installation, we have been able to see that thanks to the combination of panel production and storage, we have gone from total dependence on the national electricity grid to an average level of self-sufficiency of around 80%, with a saving in terms of unproduced CO2 estimated at 4.33 t to date.
The step taken with the installation of the photovoltaic system was not simple either in bureaucratic or economic terms, but the results to date, although very preliminary, comfort us in having taken an important path towards corporate sustainability.