The Snam dispatching center is located in San Donato Milanese, where the daily flows of methane reaching our homes are managed. The story of Sky TG24
The Italian gas network in 12 months has been turned inside out like a sock. If until last year Russia was our main supplier of methane, today its contribution is marginal. Now the gas comes mainly from the south, from Algeria and Azerbaijan. And therefore Snam, the publicly controlled company that manages the network, had to adapt.
Sky TG24 in the control room
We entered the control room of the dispatching center for the methane pipelines that cross our country, at the Snam headquarters in San Donato Milanese. The control room where about forty employees receive 300 thousand continuous information via optical fiber and decide how to sort the gas arriving in our country, up to our homes. Here, up to 95 billion cubic meters of gas are handled every year.
The entry into operation of the Piombino regasification plant
The incoming and outgoing flows and storage filling are displayed on the led panel. In the coming months, a new light will be added to the ledwall, that of the Piombino regasification plant which should come into operation in April. The choice of the port is contested by local politics, but this is explained by Maria Luisa Cassano, Snam’s dispatching and metering manager: “The choice was made because the port of Piombino is located near the national transport network, where gas that is regasified can enter our system “.
Bottleneck risk
The alternatives to the Tuscan port are limited: already today the network must transport to the North – where 60% of consumption is concentrated – a large part of the gas arriving from the South. To date, about 125 million meters can be transported to Central Italy. cubes per day at most, a level not too far from the current flows. Thus preventing the arrival of further supplies from Algeria, Libya and Azerbaijan in the future.
A bottleneck that Snam wants to avoid, through a new methane pipeline built in central Italy and a compression station in Sulmona, Abruzzo: “it is a very important project” adds Maria Luisa Cassano “because it guarantees the safety of the system. flexibility of this type also allows for an increase in arrivals from the South to receive additional gas “. A further challenge to be answered also from this control room.
Source-tg24.sky.it