The Italian major agricultural cooperative Apofruit, leader in the organic market with the Almaverde Bio brand, bets on renewables by providing its greenhouses with solar panels and starting a joint venture with Opera Energia (OPEN): Apo Energia.
Apofruit is ready to reduce the environmental impact of its processing facilities by producing electricity from renewable sources on site. The project involves the construction of seven plants in the next two years, for a total capacity of 3 megawatts and an investment of 14.5 million euros. The cooperative already owns two solar panels’ plants in the province of Forlì-Cesena having a total power of 208.6 kWh, for an annual production of about 230,000 kWh.

Within the next six months two new plants will be ready - in Scanzano Ionico (Southern Italy, province of Matera) and Aprilia (Central Italy, province of Latina) - on a roof surface of about 10,000 square meters for an investment around 4.5 million euros. The two plants will have an installed capacity of 1.1 megawatts for a yearly production of about 1,500,000 kWh.

The energy produced by the new plants will exceed the needs of the cooperative (which is about 1.3 million kWh hours per year), therefore the remaining clean energy will be granted to other cooperatives of the Romagna’s Energy Consortium.