BIO-ENERGY FROM WINERY BY-PRODUCTS: A NEW MULTIFUNCTIONAL TOOL FOR THE ITALIAN WINE DISTRICTS

This paper aims to investigate if the legislation will allow the production of energy fromwinery by-products and how this can contribute to multifunctionality of the wine makers’income. A medium size winery was selected and an anaerobic digestor process wassimulated using the company’s data. The main methods of financial evaluation werestudied to create information to see if the project concepts were valid. The resultshighlight the positive level of earnings that the project will generate due to the high levelof methane included in the pressings that could be transformed in energy, the short periodneeded for obtaining methane and the recent substantial level of government support bothin Green Certificates and financing of the initial cost of the investments.