It was a radical swerve and a gamble that today can be said to have been won. Enel is celebrating the first 10 years of renewables since Enel Green Power was born and the green sources of electricity production entered into competition with the other Enel, the more mature one, which was oriented towards fossil sources. A decade that seems like a century if you compare the world of energy as it was then and as it has become today, in full transition towards the farewell to fossil fuels and the decarbonisation planned for 2050. Not only that, but Egp's objectives are still growing and a lot: "We aim to hold a share of around 2030% of the additional quantity installed in the world by 5" said the CEO Antonio Cammisecra. Translated into numbers, this means that in a perspective of growth to 4.700 GigaWatt of global installed capacity compared to the current 2.300 Gigawatts, the delta that EGP plans to intercept is around 120 Gigawatts which, added to the 40 GW currently operated by the group, bring the total to 200 GW overall. In essence, the goal is to triple the "impact force" of the green giant.
TEN YEARS AT FULL SPEED
From zero to 44 Gw installed, with 7.700 people employed on the plants worldwide: how was this possible? "Run, run, run" is the synthesis of Francesco Venturini, born in EGP and now at the helm of Enel X, to describe the first years of activity. A race that Francesco Starace, CEO of Enel, recalls and explains: “We had a vision, namely that renewables would become a global competitive business with no incentives; but we didn't explicitly declare it because they would have thought we were crazy. Today our vision has become reality. The 7 GW of additional capacity envisaged in the 2008 plan have been reached and exceeded: today they are 8. Not only that but on renewables, inlatest business plan 2019-21 we plan to invest 11 billion for an additional 11,6 GW of additional capacity. It is a plan for 3,5 billion investments a year”. “That this could happen in 10 years we had no idea. It happened and we are happy to have anticipated it” concluded Starace.
For the future renewables therefore remain central to the creation of Ebitda and will become an increasingly global business. The leap forward will be represented byintegration between generation and final consumption that is, from the fact that green energy becomes an option of choice for the consumer for transport, for the home and so on.
RENEWABLES AND THE POSITIONING OF ITALY
“The country system in comparison with the EU is off to a good start because we have a significant percentage of renewables compared to the rest of Europe. We are among the few countries that will respect the agreements of 20-20 so Italy is absolutely in order. And now we await the release of the decree on renewables which seems to me to have come to an end and, therefore, from there on a second growing season will start which stopped in the last three years because we didn't know which direction to go. We are still in good shape and we are looking forward to being able to start again”, so Francesco Starace commented on the fact that in Enel's plans most of the investments will end up in South America, North America and Africa. already today"there are 1.250 operating plants in the world and to visit them all – Cammisecrea said – five years would not be enough”.
In addition to the prospects that will open up in Italy with the awaited renewables decree, it is here that much of the innovation is concentrated. In the 3SUN system in Catania, Cammisecra said, Enel “will produce the most advanced photovoltaic modules in the world, in double-sided recycled plastic”. Another development factor is the choice to conceive systems that can be replaced quickly (Adaptive life sizing) in order to capture the very rapid technological evolution in the sector and the related cost reduction.
THE ECOTAX IS NOT NEEDED
“Taxes are no longer needed for this type of development. What would be needed is to simplify the way this new renewable technology is spread. This is the position of Enel and of the electricity producers themselves associated with Elettricità Futura. “The problem isn't money, it's the real difficulty of making renewables an everyday thing. So simplification and facilitation of bureaucratic processes are more important than taxes” Starace clarified. When asked if incentives are also useless, he replied: “I don't think they are fundamental at all. We are not for incentives”. Cammisecra echoed him. “Our country is endowed with a good solar and wind resource which will allow good competitiveness of renewable sources in the Italian energy matrix, up to representing the absolute majority of generation in 2030. One of the key factors for the development of renewables in the short-term medium term in Italy the streamlining and speeding up of authorization procedures remains, no incentives are needed, but clear regulatory frameworks. In the meantime, we are celebrating our tenth anniversary with il exceeding the 100 TWh of renewable energy produced in one year for the first time".
Speaking of prospects for Italy and new instruments. Andrea Péruzy, President and CEO of Acquirente Unico urged "clear choices of industrial policy for PPAs (Power purchase agreements), long-term contracts for renewables, otherwise the European climate-energy targets for 2030 will remain distant objectives".
At the end of the morning EGP communicated the exit from Uruguay through an agreement with the energy company Atlantica Yield for the sale of 50 MW in Cerro Largo, about 320 km from Montevideo. The transaction is valued at approximately 120 million US dollars, the equivalent of the enterprise value of the company sold.
