Italcer Group: producing ceramic tiles with clean energy
Italcer Group, a leading Italian player in the ceramic design sector, has chosen Sacmi to supply a latest-generation kiln for its Fiorano Modenese facility.
Sacmi’s new Maestro kiln uses hybrid hydrogen-methane technology and will be capable of operating with up to 50% hydrogen in its energy blend once hydrogen becomes widely available.
The partnership with Sacmi confirms Italcer’s commitment to innovation and sustainability, a field in which the company has invested more than €20 million over the past two years with the aim of satisfying the needs of increasingly environmentally conscious consumers.
In the space of just five years, the company has become a key player in the field of designer surfaces with consolidated revenues of around €360 million in 2022 and a growth rate of over 30% in the last three years. It now invests over 3% of its revenues in R&D and uses more than 50% recycled raw materials in its production processes.
This commitment to sustainability has earned Italcer a place in the World Alliance for Efficient Solutions, the NGO that promotes green energy worldwide and helps governments achieve their ESG goals. In 2022, Italcer also won first place among the top 100 Italian companies participating in the Sustainability Award and is now capable of recycling and recovering more than 99.8% of the production waste generated at its various production sites.
“We are constantly looking to the future,” says Italcer Group’s CEO Graziano Verdi. “In recent years we have installed three latest-generation cogenerators that produce around 33,000 MWh out of a total requirement of 57,000 MWh. We will also be able to generate more than a third of our electrical energy requirements using photovoltaic panels installed on the roofs of our factories. Installation of the new kiln will enable us to achieve the ambitious goal of cutting our gas consumption by around 1.5 million cubic metres.”
“The Sacmi Group is a world leader in the production of ceramic machinery and for several years now has been designing kilns for the ceramic industry that run partly on hydrogen and partly on methane,” says Sacmi’s Chairman Paolo Mongardi. “We are currently experimenting with a 100% hydrogen-fuelled kiln of the type requested by Italcer.”
