Anaergia Inc. announced it has officially commissioned a new biomethane facility in Italy, the Calimera Bio plant in the Province of Lecce. The facility is the second of seven facilities Anaergia is building which together will form one of the largest food waste to biomethane platforms in Europe. The Calimera Bio facility has the capacity to anaerobically digest 24,000 metric tons of landfill-diverted food scraps and other organic waste each year, and to convert this waste into 2,190,000 cubic meters of renewable natural gas (“RNG” or “biomethane”) that will be injected into the region's natural gas pipelines.

The new plant will also treat the digestate that remains after the anaerobic digestion process to create 9,000 tons per year of high-quality natural fertilizer. Anaergia was the technology provider for the project, and owns 60% of the facility. Anaergia's partner in this plant is a regional waste management company.

The commissioning of the new Calimera plant comes on the heels of the European Commission's pledge of €37 billion to increase biomethane production in the EU, as part of its €300 billion RePowerEU plan to stop Russian energy imports and move to green energy by the end of the decade. The Commission is proposing an action plan to achieve 35 billion cubic meters of annual biomethane production by 2030. With offices in five European countries, Anaergia is in an excellent position to support these goals.