The farm "Fattorie Toscane" (Pisa, Italy) is carrying out a project to produce 8,000MWh of green energy in a year, and at the same time cutting 7,000 tons of CO2 per year.

The energy will be produced by photovoltaic panels and biogas, and distributed through the public grid, satisfying the needs of 1,200 families.

"Fattorie Toscane" is one of the first big cattle-breeding farms (2,500 animals) to have decided to combine the traditional meat production chain and the renewable energy production chain.

The most interesting characteristics of this project is that biogas (mainly methane) will only be produced from the farm discards, for instance, manure.

So far, biogas has usually been produced from cereals which, however, are taken out of the human food chain.
Moreover 1 MW of thermal energy, heat water collected from the production chain, will be used to dry a part of the biomass which is not being transformed into biogas.

A new prototype of dryer transforms this biomass into a biological high value fertilizer, which will substitute the chemical ones.

The project, commissioned by a firm from Piacenza, costs 9 million euro and the first phase (biogas production) will be realized by the end of 2011.

For more info please check the following link (only in Italian).