Brussels approves the Energy and Climate Plan but the goal is far away
In recent days the European Commission has approved – with full applause in Brussels and total silence in Italy – the National Integrated Energy and Environment Plan, which now becomes operational.
It will be difficult for Italy to achieve the goals it has set.
The slowness of bureaucracy and the committees of “no” in the energy sector are paralyzing investment in new plants powered by renewable energy.
For example, the tenders announced by the Gse to assign incentives for renewable energy have been almost completely deserted; companies have submitted very few offers with superb prices of kilowatt hours.
Result: this weighs on the Italian system for over 600 million a year. Money paid by families and businesses through electricity bills, warns a Confindustria position paper entitled “The cost of inefficiency of authorization procedures for energy transition and sustainability”. The solutions, according to Confindustria, are articulated in a keyboard of tools among which stand out a serious policy of regulatory simplification and “making Regions and local authorities responsible in an effective way”, says the president of the Energy Technical Group of Confindustria, Aurelio Regina.
The brake on renewables
Francesco Ferrante, vice-president of the Kyoto Club, had surveyed 160 projects of plants to produce biomethane from organic waste and agricultural waste blocked by committees of “informed” citizens and angry mayors.
The Anie Rinnovabili (the power plant manufacturers) had observed that on average, wind power plants equal to 6 megawatts and photovoltaic plants equal to 54 megawatts are realized every month. “It is still far from the average wind of 83 megawatts per month and photovoltaic of 250 megawatts per month necessary to achieve the objectives of the Pniec to 2030,” notes the Anie Rinnovabili.
It is no coincidence that Terna to build the high voltage power line Adriatic Link between Marche and Abruzzo (see article on page 18) had to avoid crossing areas unsuitable for energy transition and so the high voltage line will be laid offshore, on the seabed, with an increase in costs that will be paid by all Italian citizens.
The Confindustria analysis
The Confindustria document on the extra costs generated by bureaucratic inertia and by the passatist rebellion against the energy transition estimates that this paralysis weighs about 400 million per year for the lack of investment, another 200 million (at least) for the reduced security of the energy system.
The tenders for incentives to renewables announced by the Gse and attended by an oligopoly of lucky bidders with amateur values are a testament to the cost to the Italians the brake on the supply of new clean energy.
The document of Confindustria that solicits solutions to unlock the construction of clean power plants also underlies another problem.
Sharing with the Regions
Italy will be fined by Europe if it fails to achieve those objectives. In order to achieve them, it is necessary to remove the plug from the most aged high voltage grids and build renewable plants where there is the resource, that is, wind power plants are built where there is wind, solar power plants in the sunniest places, hydroelectric plants where there is water. If the nimby committees, Tar, mayors, prosecutors, superintendents, regions will stop almost all projects, they will be the ones to pay the fines or, as usual, this time the extra cost will be socialized making it fall on others, that is, on citizens and businesses?
One of the solutions, proposes the Confindustria in the document, is to share the objectives between the State and the Regions in a form of “burden sharing”, division of tasks.
Sharing tasks
Aurelio Regina, president of Confindustria’s Energy Technical Group, calls for a local sharing of national targets: “Since energy is a network service and the achievement of European targets is the responsibility of the central government, it is unthinkable to plan such a significant investment without making regions and local authorities responsible for the national objective. This – he adds – is one of the greatest challenges that the Minister for Ecological Transition, Roberto Cingolani, will have to face”.