A national integrated approach to regulate some specific industrial activities on the basis of the application of Best Available Techniques (BAT) and future perspective under the 2010/75/UE Directive

Abstract

Emissions from relevant industrial activities are currently regulated under the 2010/75/UE Directive (IED) on industrial emissions (integrated prevention and control). The purpose of IED Directive is to achieve the integrated pollution prevention and control from large industrial installations. According to the IED Directive, operating conditions required to industrial installations by means of the IPPC permits, shall be based on Best Available Techniques (BAT) in order to reach an adequate level of environmental protection.The aim of the present paper is to review and pin-point some specific issues associated to the Italian IPPC licensing framework related to the previous IPPC Directive, with the view of the implementation of the IED Directive and the consequent future review and update of IPPC permits released also by taking into account the experience acquired in the recent years.As a matter of fact, comparability of industrial operating conditions of installations of national relevance and related monitored emissions data is currently a very crucial issue in the process of IPPC licensing, since it is still a challenge the assessment and analysis of similar emission sources, but operating under different conditions that may also be dependent from plant specific characteristics varying from site to site.Furthermore, the request for improving environmental performance as well as an extensive monitoring of operating conditions at the installation, stimulates the industry, in the long run, to perform their activities more effectively, as described in the present paper.Thus, in such a legislative framework, monitoring methodologies become more significant not only for deriving information related to the compliance to emission limit values in IPPC permits released, but also for the purpose of the environmental performance assessment of the selected techniques as BAT and for the management procedures associated with the techniques in the industrial installations.