2018 is the year in which the Sen - National Energy Strategy - will have to give the first results. After months of discussion and gathering of opinions, we expect effective actions and measures. These will be decisive steps to ascertain the value of the Gentiloni government's choices and Italy is today among the best organized European countries in energy and environmental matters. The negative impact of the tariff increase is there. But it is completely instrumental to link it to the new Sen, as has been tried to do these days. There are not yet the objective prerequisites for establishing to what extent we will pay more dearly for gas and electricity. And the March elections cannot become the alibi for doing nothing or – worse – delivering a disappointing status quo to the next Parliament. The new energy horizon is traced with solid and lasting fundamentals.
Even at the end of 2017, businesses and operators made themselves heard. It must be acknowledged that they believe in it even if they still fight against the invisible monster of bureaucracy. Simplifying the authorization procedures for the installation of plants from renewable sources, for example, was the latest appeal launched by the companies associated with Anev and Elettricità Futura. What will be the use of such an ambitious vision, if wind energy suffers and can't stand the heavy authorization procedure? It is not the only sector, mind you. And let's not bother here with the regasification plants, the pipelines, the power lines.
Ministers Galletti and Calenda did their best, challenging local exploitation "but - says Simone Togni, president of Anev - the simplification of authorizations is fundamental for the construction of plants using renewable energy sources". There is still more to do. The system comes up against situations where procedures for these sources are longer and more complicated than those for fossil sources. In the background there are always the scenarios of the UN climate conferences of the last two years. Quotas equal to one third of future Italian production are assigned to wind and photovoltaic power. Complying with international obligations becomes so complicated if there are rules to integrate and ideological positions to dismantle to put the brakes on. Entrepreneurs therefore demand quick decisions for the renewal of existing plants and for new ones.
We were saying that it is an act of trust in Sen, to be made concrete, however, with real money and speedy procedures. After all, it shouldn't be complicated if the Ministry of the Environment claims to have dedicated an in-depth legislative investigation and particular attention to the issue of simplifications when it was discussed in Parliament. The implementing decrees are missing, in which checklists are in any case foreseen to verify each instance with a deadline of thirty days to decide. The comparison, then, will inevitably move to the territories affected by renewable plants.
And coincidentally in Puglia – the Region that most opposes many of the government's choices – Assoelettrica has already made itself heard so that the regulatory provisions of the new environmental assessment decree are translated into measures for the sector. Simone Mori – president of Elettricità Futura – seems optimistic in any case. Not for anything else - we add - because Puglia for more than a decade was the Italian region with the greatest investments in alternative sources. In 2015, its production from renewables, by comparison, surpassed that of China. It would be a great coup if the first go-ahead to speed up the authorization procedures came from Bari. Rome should catch up.
