There is a piece that is still missing in the composition of Italian energy uses. It is the certainty of the continuity of gas distribution in the cities entrusted to specialized concessionary companies. The concessions have largely expired, in de facto extension, with the sector unable to develop long-term strategies. The concessions, through new service contracts, had to be put out to tender for territorial areas (177 throughout Italy) but have accumulated a delay of many years. In the beginning it was the general reform of the gas market, the only one in Europe to separate commercial and technical activities. The missing piece is worth a total of around 20 billion euro, scratched for now by the tender for the Milan area alone, awarded to A2A. Delays in the rest of Italy are of various nature. Partly due to the complex machinery of the procedures necessary to carry out the actual tenders.
In this not very reassuring scenario for companies and their related industries, the Association of Municipalities, Anci, has come forward. He started the GareGas Planet project, an offshoot of the European Pon Governance programme. Anci Lombardia has been assumed as a point of reference for transferring the methods for dealing with competitive tenders to the territory. A system that has already helped some Municipalities to facilitate both the political part of the administrations and the technical-bureaucratic one. In summary - explains the Anci - we work on the co-planning between Municipalities and the contracting station of the area tenders to have effectiveness in the collection of data, in the systematic knowledge of the assets and of the implications for the following maximum 12 years of management.
After the initial experience in the North, the project is taking root in the South. Catania, Bari, Pizzo Calabro, Vibo Valentia will initially link up with Varese and other cities in the GareGas PlaNet to enter Pon Governance. A useful attempt to organize activities, starting to estimate the economic value of the plants built in the South thanks to the coordinated interventions of the State and historic gas companies. They will deal with a plan started more than thirty years ago that accompanied the diversification of energy sources in this part of Italy, today able to face the challenges of the coexistence between fossil and renewables. And it is not accidental that the day before yesterday in Brussels on the sidelines of theyet another M5S document unfavorable to the Tap pipeline, it has been recalled that the European Commission has recognized the pipeline as aid in the further diversification of energy supply routes in vulnerable regions such as the South of Italy.
Natural gas - with a cross-border gas pipeline costing 4 billion euros - is recognized as having a valuable role in decarbonisation with environmental implications and savings for Italian families and industries. An advanced vision of needs that should set aside controversies and oppositions, keeping together renewable and traditional sources within the time frame established at European level. The acceleration of new contracts for the management of gas networks in cities is not out of this context.
