Fight against climate change and energy: the lights go out on the World Economic Forum in Davos 2020 and the spotlights on the energy transition are turned back on. The theme of how to deal with the production, distribution and ultimately the consumption of energy could not be excluded from the Swiss meeting dedicated this year to the enigma of how to protect the planet in the next 10 years and in the future from the risks of global warming. Decarbonization, digitization, the race for renewables, smart cities, electric mobility are some of the keys to solving the energy equation. “When energy changes, the world changes. As a new decade begins, the path of change must accelerate." As Jeffrey Martin president and CEO of Sempra Energy, the group based in San Diego, California, focused on electricity and gas infrastructures, has put on the table of the world's industrial elite the importance of the challenge that is underway.
ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS, THE EARTH BURNS
It is true that energy is a powerful factor of change and it is true that an epochal transformation is at stake. Faced with the 5 most relevant climate risks of the Global risks report 2020 , all attributable to extreme climatic conditions, a more sustainable energy footprint can energetically contribute to bringing the thermometer back to less incandescent values. And this was also discussed in Davos. To get a concrete idea of the variables involved, just remember that primary energy consumption increased by 70% between 1990 and 2018, moving from West to East: China has more than quadrupled its consumption (from 684 to 3.273 MToe, million tons of oil equivalent), land CO2 emissions reached a record level in 2018 nearly half (49%) attributable to Southeast Asian Tigers. And they don't retreat: on 22 January, just as the elite of world industry and institutions were meeting in Davos to discuss climate and sustainability, theMauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii it recorded 414,08 ppm (parts per million) when the safe level should be 350.
Faced with these numbers which illustrate the complexity of the challenge, Trump's America turns a deaf ear and Ursula Von del Leyen's Europe responsibly launches a Green New Deal which should lead the EU to complete decarbonisation by 2050. Italy is adapting even if the resources put in place by the government appear completely insufficient (4,9 billion up to 2023 against the 50 billion committed by Germany) to reach the ambitious goals which are also set by National energy and climate plan (Pniec) recently definitively approved and sent to Brussels.
ITALY AND THE TRANSITION, THE ROLE OF ENTERPRISES
Italy has accepted the 2030 goals of Clean energy packages of the EU: reduction of CO2 emissions by 40% compared to 1990, increase in renewables to 32%, increase in energy efficiency to 32,5%. Enel has launched a strong investment plan with the forecast of spending 14,4 billion, approximately 50% of the total capex, to progressively replace the conventional generation, accelerating on growth of renewables. A2A and Hera are also projected towards greater decarbonisation, Snam instead focuses on renewable gas and hydrogen, the great protagonist in Davos. Finally, electric mobility is advancing in the plans of companies, not only for private transport but also for public transport. Atm, the Milanese municipal company, will bring electric buses to 200 by the end of the year and last July awarded a tender for another 250 e-buses.
To achieve the objectives of the Pniec, a mountain of new solar and wind megawatts will have to arrive on the grid with its load of instability and non-programmability. According to CDP calculations, the gap estimated by 2030 is 31 GWatt to be created, while at least 30.000 new buses would be needed in public transport. The impact of the transition on infrastructure, according to estimates by Confindustria Energia based on the plans of the main players, will require 96 billion of investments in infrastructure and could generate added value on the national economy of 142 billion.
THE TRANSITION AND TERNA'S PLAN
The new context puts pressure on the Tso groups (transmission system operator) which, like Terna in Italy, ensure the stability and security of the national electricity transmission grid on which all these upcoming changes have an impact. To get an idea of what the energy transition actually means, it is enough to remember that the electricity system is moving from a model based on approximately 250 production plants to a distributed generation system which, in addition to the 250 plants mentioned above, must also count with beyond 800 potential plants (including renewables, electric vehicles, storage batteries) and 40 million units of consumption. “It's a revolution – said the CEO Luigi Ferraris recently – comparable to the industrial one, which will necessarily have an impact on Terna's business”. And that's why Ferraris has launched a 6 billion investment plan in the five-year period 2019-2023, up 55% on the previous 2017-2021 plan. A blockbuster plan, never seen before, which also focuses on cross-border interconnections: the last recently made operational is the one between Italy and Montenegro but two more are under construction with France and Austria and another 9 have been planned and are in the process of being authorised. In the new framework, in fact, it no longer makes sense to speak only of the national system but it is necessary look to an integrated European system.
An enormous effort, that of Terna, which sees to its credit thecommissioning of projects for 3 billion (final balance for 2017, 2018 and part of 2019) with the rearrangement of the metropolitan areas of Milan, Genoa, Rome, Naples and Palermo and the entry into operation of the cable that finally connects Capri to the Continent as well as the second cable for the connection with Sorrento. The SaCoI 3 between Sardinia, Corsica and Italy, the Gissi-Foggia power line in Puglia and the Paternò-Pant-Priolo power line in Sicily are to be completed. Major works, such as those between Italy and France or between Italy and Montenegro, are built with underground or submarine cables: zero impact on the environment. It's still: investments to digitize the network and thus have data in real time (or even in advance) on failures, coverage peaks, voltage loads. Overall, 13,4 billion over 10 years for the development of the national electricity grid. All this while closing the traditional thermoelectric plants put out of the market precisely by the energy transition towards renewables and the opening of new advanced gas-fired plants becomes essential to stabilize the system.
