At the European Council at the end of October, the heads of state of the 28 EU Members reached an agreement on the new energy policy objectives for 2030, aiming at that date for a 40% reduction in climate-changing gas emissions (compared to 1990 levels) and a contribution of 27% of renewables to European energy consumption. In essence, the European energy policy horizon now moves to 2030, without however forgetting the already well-known “20-20-20” objectives. Precisely from the experience (with lights and shadows) of how the EU targets for 2020 have been translated into national interventions, our country must draw the most important lessons in order not to run into the same mistakes.
Renewable sources and energy efficiency will also represent a fundamental objective to be pursued in the next decade, primarily due to the obvious environmental benefits. However, recent Italian experiences of support to RES were based on errors in the design of incentives which frustrated the effective and efficient achievement of national objectives, in particular due to the too early achievement of individual objectives.
Pausing for example on the most striking case, namely that of photovoltaics. Already in 2012, the Energy Services Operator (GSE) reported over 16,4 GW of installed power, almost double the target of 8,6 GW that the National Action Plan (2010) set as a target for 2020. This enormous advance has had important consequences on the electricity system and on the national industrial fabric, including:
– the massive installation of "first generation" technologies for photovoltaic production, without being able to fully benefit from the progressive reduction in costs associated with current techniques (the price of silicon modules has more than halved compared to 2011 levels) and the technological evolutions of the period 2012-2020;
– a huge flow of incentives taken from customers' bills and directed abroad, since Italy was (and still is) equipped only to cover the final part of the photovoltaic supply chain and not the decidedly more profitable "upstream" phases ;
– the technical incapacity of the national transmission system to fully exploit the new renewable power, with more frequent and onerous recourse to Dispatching Services to ensure the overall balance of the system, with an increase in system charges to be borne by the customer ( the Electricity Sector Equalization Fund reports an increase in the annual revenue from fees for the remuneration of dispatching costs of 25% between 2010 and 2012, with evidence of a further increase in 2013);
– the crowding out of investments in the production of traditional electricity, with a thermoelectric park as a whole oversized for the needs of the post-crisis country (REF-E estimates a reserve margin of the electricity park equal to 35% in 2013, which still for some years will remain at these levels, against the adequacy threshold identified by Terna as 23%), and the destruction of the relative employment and relative value also for some national companies.
Furthermore, it is important to remember that a country's electricity generation system cannot be based predominantly around non-programmable renewable generation capacity, such as photovoltaic and wind power, otherwise the system itself will become unreliable. Non-programmable renewables can only be developed in the presence of adequate stable (for baseload services) and flexible (for balancing services) capacity, mainly supplied by traditional sources with low environmental impact or by those innovative sources with production continuity (e.g. WTE and biogas), from a technologically adequate transport and distribution network system with, finally, future storage systems, which to date are still in the testing stage through pilot projects both in Italy and abroad.
For the future of the national energy sector, therefore, a different approach is needed, not only in energy policy but also in industrial policy, for example by dedicating attention to renewable sources in order to identify that mix of technologies and that depth of time capable of responding effectively not only to environmental issues, but also to the needs of sustainability over time at the system level. At the same time, it will be necessary to know how to promote the development of domestic industrial chains, also for the infrastructural part, and the full exploitation of the assets that the country already has.
This last point deserves particular attention and requires a debate on the future of the energy strategy that is grafted onto the needs of industrial policy. If we look across the border, other countries are modeling energy systems that are able to maximize the strengths of each specific situation, improving their energy independence and therefore the competitiveness between production systems:
– Germany, for example, has provided incentives for photovoltaic and wind power production knowing that it can direct at least a part of it to domestic industry, thanks to the supervision of the two supply chains. However, it should be noted that a recent assessment of the support schemes for renewable sources, commissioned by the Bundestag, has highlighted the limited effectiveness of encouraging the production of renewable energy to reduce CO2 emissions and technological innovation in relation to the choices made by Germany itself (EFI-EEG fördert weder Klimaschutz noch Innovationen);
– the United States is converting to become an exporter of natural gas thanks to the possibilities offered by the shale gas, and in the toughest years of the crisis they were able to benefit from the collapse in gas prices to the advantage of the competitiveness of domestic industry and, therefore, its recovery. In ten years the contribution of shale gas methane production in the USA went from 2% to 40%, with an impact on employment estimated at over 1,5 million jobs.
On the contrary, up to now Italy has adopted a passive approach to energy matters, as a "policy taker", without organically developing a strategy that could be based on its strengths and on the assets at its disposal, an error which is translated into lower economic growth, lower employment and higher cost of procurement of energy resources, for an overall lower competitiveness of our industrial system compared to international benchmarks.
A new strategy must therefore be able to focus on the country's wealth and on its own excellence in the industrial field in a way free from preconceptions. From this point of view, the approach of those who would like to abandon hydrocarbon exploration and extraction activities or label them as "residual" seems short-sighted, thus nullifying not only the benefits associated with domestic production (employment, related industries, royalties) but also impoverishing that know-how -how Italian that we have instead exported to the world. Among other things, the environmental risks associated with mining activities, often alleged as trade-offs of exploration activity, exist both in the case of drilling along our coasts and in the distant Asian areas from which we import our gas, where it is by no means certain that the same high environmental standards in force in Italy are respected.
Similarly, also for the waste cycle there is a need for reasoned reflection and without preconceptions to be inserted into the very basis of the new energy strategy. Italy continues to have to deal with emergency situations, to find short-term stop-gap solutions, without instead defining and implementing a solid national plan in order to "close the loop" of the environment within its borders. And in this perspective, not only the widely known municipal waste is relevant, but also and above all the so-called special waste which represents a much higher quantity in volume.
If the country were to equip itself with the infrastructure necessary to manage the entire cycle on its territory - including through the redevelopment of electricity production plants that are no longer usable - it would no longer be forced to bear the economic and environmental burdens (transport) to export part of its waste abroad and thus to give up the exploitation of what is in any case one of our assets - at least less "noble" than methane or other natural sources - with important repercussions on employment and economic growth, naturally without any sacrifice for the environment.
The experience that the Hera Group has gained over the years can be taken as an example to best describe the opportunities associated with an energy-environmental project of this type. The investments made to date by the Group in order to have state-of-the-art treatment, recovery and disposal plants that meet the challenges of the sector mean that in the areas served by Hera, urban waste disposed of in landfills constitutes only 16% of the total, and in the future less than 10%, placing Hera on a par with the most virtuous European countries, according to the Commission's analysis contained in the 2012 "Screening of waste management performance of EU member States". Both the efforts to increase the diffusion of differentiated waste collection and make the management model evolve, thus increasing the possibility of selecting and recovering the material in dedicated plants, both the provision of modern waste-to-energy plants capable of extracting energy from the fraction of waste that cannot be sent for recovery, respecting the parameters of environmental sustainability in force (with effective concentrations of emissions equal to 13% of the legal limits) and the energy efficiency standards defined at European level.
The technologies, the know-how, the experiences to make the most of the wealth of resources that Italy has and will have at its disposal are therefore already a reality in our country. However, there is still a lack of a systemic legal/regulatory framework, and a political and industrial direction that would guide the energy sector - and the research associated with it - towards the exploitation of national industrial excellence, or rather, of what the country has.
Our hope is therefore that before embarking on the new European targets, the country promotes a constructive and pragmatic discussion on the best route to follow for their achievement.
