Veneto is a candidate to be the world champion of the energy transition, also to save a supply chain of 7 thousand jobs in the heating industry. Of course, «The Cupertino of energy, to all intents and purposes, already is. It is the only region in Europe that has enterprises, research and development centers, know-how, technical skills and universities that can open a new energy path in heating. We are unique on a technological level. To find comparable skills you have to go to Japan ».
Laura Dalla Vecchia, president of Confindustria Vicenza, yesterday called together the protagonists of industry, but also of research and institutions, at the Baxi headquarters, in Bassano del Grappa, to take stock of what «is not a simple ecological transition: it is a revolution. And as such it will be neither simple nor neutral, on the contrary. The future of 7,000 people working in the heating industry in the Veneto and their families will depend on the decisions we will take now, as a territorial system made up of businesses and regional government ”.
The heating industry in Veneto has 40 companies, including builders and subcontractors, names such as Riello, Ferroli, Fraccaro, Blowtherm, Mut, Lovato, for a turnover of 2 billion. Among these, in addition to Baxi with the general manager Alberto Favero, also Polidoro, of which Dalla Vecchia herself is president and which produces gas burners, and Pietro Fiorentini (technological solutions for the multigas system), represented by the R&D manager Claudio Imboccioli; also guest was the commissioner for economic development Roberto Marcato, because the sector expects the necessary certainties from politics. Climate change – and now also the conflict unleashed by Russia – are pushing European policies to no longer focus on gas, which not only powers companies but also home boilers, but on electricity produced from renewable sources. But it is not a change that can be made in a few months, and above all we need to look at the risks; like that Italian productions go out of business by opening the doors of Italian homes to electric boilers and heat pumps (not to be confused with split air conditioners with this function) which are now the prerogative of producers exclusively from the Far East.
The solution – explain the companies – is there, and allows you to act on two fronts: to lower harmful emissions quickly, giving time to develop new products without opening the doors to competition and defending, in the area, skills and jobs. Work. Hence the call to all interested parties – present Snam, the European heating industry (EHI) and the Italian association for hydrogen and fuel cells (H1IT) – to work on the project to make the enlarged area that is being developed between Verona, Vicenza and Padua, the energy transition district, «capable of developing unique projects in the world that bring the production of the products of the next decades to Veneto. And it can do it if public institutions and businesses like ours work together ”, Dalla Vecchia stresses.
Also because companies have begun to move and invest in change for years, well before the current emergency, and paradoxically they have developed innovative solutions at the request of advanced markets such as those of Northern Europe. This is the case of Baxi, which produces 3,000 boilers a day and has recently started a new production line (to add to the already existing 14) of hydrogen boilers. The BDR Thermea Group, to which Baxi belongs, has set a target of an average reduction of 30% (compared to 2019) in CO2-e emissions due to the use of the product by 2030.