It will not be easy for the ministers of the Environment, Infrastructure and the South to block the TAP, the largest transnational energy infrastructure conceived in recent years. If the Environment Minister Costa considers it useless, the President of the Energy Authority, on the contrary, considers it strategic, like all the national industry, interested in designing a different future for energy supplies and consumption . It has rightly been noted that in his seven years at the top of the Arera, Bortoni has never intervened on topics that did not fall within his strict competence. He did it at the Energy Festival to underline a conceptual and political distance from those who first in the electoral campaign and now in government, do not intend to support the large gas pipeline project. They do not want the Apulian coasts to accept the docking of the infrastructure coming from Azerbaijan and consequently that Southern Italy and Europe have access to a new pipeline. It is the European countries that need new supplies for the next 30-50 years and the producing countries of the East have spared no money and agreements to satisfy the demand.
What escapes - as long as you don't want to remain a prisoner of ideological schemes - is that those agreements and those transport infrastructures were approved in the same years in which the world began to discuss the diversification of energy sources and climate change. Europe – in which the government says it wants to stay every day – has made shrewd choices in the energy field without reducing the objectives of diversification of sources and growth of renewables. There is an average time of flexibility and reasonableness to keep cities and industries going. Portugal, Spain and Denmark know something about this, and they waited decades before seeing wind power and photovoltaics prevail. In the meantime, the demand for gas is rising everywhere and in Brussels for about ten years there has been discussion of the European gas hub. Also for these reasons, Bortoni said that Italy is absolutely not in a position to give up the Tap.
In the coming days, the government and the three ministers mentioned above will have to take an official position. The 5S soul will almost certainly listen back to its electoral base and anti-infrastructure anxieties. It will be an opportunity to understand whether the awareness will prevail that the TAP does not satisfy partisan interests, but those of an entire continent, connected to the Balkans by a megapipe of over 3 km to be put into operation in just over a year and a half. Or, conversely, if the transition from struggle to government is not accomplished.
The new Government must approve the following Framework scenario 2019-2030:
Installed generation capacity [TWh]
Energy type Reference
2017
Scenario A2030 Scenario B2030 Scenario
C2030
Screenwriting
B 2025
Screenwriting
B 2035
Nucleare 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Lignite 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Carbone duro 25,0 13,5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Gas naturale 96.0 32.8 30.2 29.4 0.0 0.0
Olio-nafta 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Stoccaggio pompato 40.0 3.000,0 3.000,0 3.000,0 3.000,0 3.000,0
Other conventional generations 4.3 4.1 4.1 4.1 4.1 4.1
Capacità di riserva 0.0 2,0 2,0 2,0 2,0 2,0
Total Conventional Generation 165,3 3052,4 3.036,3 3.035,5 3.006,1 3.006,1
Vento a terra 50,5 74.3 81.5 85.5 70,5 90.8
Offshore Wind 5.4 20.0 17,0 17,0 10.8 23.2
fotovoltaico 42.4 72.9 91.3 104.5 73,3 97.4
biomassa 7.6 6.0 6.0 6.0 7.3 4.6
Hydro 56,0 56.0 56,0 56,0 56,0 56,0
Altre generazioni rinnovabili 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3
Total Renewable Generation 112.8 180.1 202,7 219.9 168,8 222,9
Generazione totale 278,1 3.232,5 3.239,0 3.255,4 3.174,9 3.229,0
Net electricity consumption [TWh]
Consumo netto elettrico 530,1 512,3 543.9 576,5 528,4 549,4
Sector interconnect driver [Quantity in million]
Domestic heat pumps 0.7 1.1 2.6 4.1 1.7 2.9
E-Mobility 0.1 1.0 6.0 10.0 2.0 8.0
Flexibility options and deposits [GW]
Potenza al gas – 1.0 2.0 3.0 0.5 3.0
Memoria PV-Batteria 0.3 6.5 8.0 10.1 3.2 12.3
Large battery space 0.1 1.5 2.0 2.4 1.2 3.4
DSM (industry and commerce, commerce, service sectors) 1.5 2.0 4.0 6.0 3.0 5.0
Market modelling
Standard Co2 for market modeling – Max. 184 Max. 184 Max. 184 Max. 240 Max.127
Renewable energies
In the new baseline scenario 2019, the scenarios have changed significantly compared to the last framework of the 2017 scenario, due to the new specifications of the coalition and European agreement. The expansion of renewable energy under the scenario 2019-2030 is closely aligned with the coalition agreement target in March 2018 to cover 65% of future gross consumption through renewable energy generation. Calls for special offers for onshore water, marine, wind and photovoltaic energy and increased quantities of offshore wind energy are also part of the new landscape. The goal of 65 percent renewable energy in gross electricity consumption by 2030 is included in all scenarios, but is achieved through different paths of renewable energy expansion. Therefore, the 2030 scenarios go far beyond the concrete development paths of the current SEN Energia which favored gas by balancing 110 Twh of wind and solar renewables with 110 Twh of gas. This is a sensational mistake by Calenda because in the meantime on fossil pressures and errors Enea, rejected the pumping giving him 10 TWh instead of 3.000 TWh. However, it can be assumed that the expansion paths and volume of offers for renewables will be adjusted (upward, if the past is any indication) in future amendments to the SEN.
Tap gas is useless if we correct some glaring errors of the Germans in terms of energy and don't fall back into the gas trap which is the energy of the truly ignorant that abounds in Italy.
1. Germany's pledge was to expand its renewable energy capacity to replace lost nuclear power plants, but the country's carbon emissions are currently on the rise.
2. The right decision to shut down all 19 nuclear power plants in Germany by 2022 was taken in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, just one year after Chancellor Angela Merkel set out to extend plant lifespans. This policy reversal has been accompanied by plans to phase out the use of fossil fuels by bringing renewable energy's share of the German energy mix up to 80% by 2050.
3. Although I told the Germans that there was a lack of serious baseload storage on wind and solar, the first years of Energiewende revealed the problems that the model poses both for Germany and for the rest of Europe if it is stored only with batteries and not switch to decentralized mass storage. Energiewende is not just an internal matter: one of its key tenets is that the country has nine neighbors with whom it can trade energy, either by selling excess energy when renewables overlap or by importing it from Austrian, Polish, French and Czech power plants when German renewables are underperforming.
4. While Germany has managed to bring the share of electricity produced from renewables down to 30 percent, the previous steady decline in carbon emissions – 27 percent from 1999 to 2009 – has strongly reversed since Germany decided to phase out the nuclear. Instead of falling, emissions instead increased by four percent in the following years. Why the worrying increase in emissions? Because renewable energy is still inherently intermittent in Germany.
5. Not enough great advances in battery and accumulator technology, Germany will be forced to keep other domestic energy sources for decades to come. If nuclear power is ruled out, coal-fired plants will continue to operate in their place and pollute the atmosphere in the process. Even worse, many thermal power plants in Germany burn lignite, a specific type of hard coal that emits more CO2 than almost any other fossil fuel. While natural gas
has 430-550 g of CO2 per kilowatt hour, lignite clocks accumulate to 1,1 kg of CO2. Nuclear energy emits only 16 g of CO2 per kilowattrail of renewable methane on 50 g.
6.These high emissions aren't the only problem with Germany's baseload carrying capacity. Coal-fired plants aren't nimble enough to offset production when conditions are optimal for renewable energy production. Therefore, fluctuations in the supply of renewable sources cause a glut of energy in a grid that is notoriously unable to handle sudden peaks. Germany criminally neglected grid development for years, focusing on the more blatant goal of expanding renewable capacity. The result? Crippling grid problems make the famous increase in renewable energy generation all but meaningless.
7. These grid bottlenecks have serious knock-on effects for Germany's neighbors. Because the country's north-south power lines lack the capacity to carry power from North Sea turbines into the country's industrial heartland, so-called "power cycle flows" automatically divert electricity through nearby power grids. Typically, the Czech Republic and Poland bear the brunt of the overflow. They are now installing devices known as phase shifters to prevent widespread blackouts during peaks.
8.These phase shifters may not be sufficient to prevent grid disruption when the EU extends its electricity grid to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The Baltic states have so far been integrated into a Russian-run electricity grid under the 2001 BRELL deal, but they hope to connect to the European grid instead between 2020 and 2025. In line with their anti-nuclear stance, the Baltic states hope to better enforce Lithuania's ban on importing energy from Belarus' Ostrovets nuclear power plant by joining the EU's energy system.
9. The three countries plan to connect to the European grid via a single link through Poland, which is already suffering heavily from German power fluctuations. Unless the Baltic countries make significant investments to increase their baseload capacities and alleviate supply problems, the Polish link will expose them to German energy surges and put further pressure on already existing energy distribution systems. The Baltics hope to achieve this increase in spare capacities solely through renewable energy, a move that will only exacerbate the problem. Ironically, this decision will also come with unexpected side effects: higher CO2 emissions in the region. It is expected that Poland, to compensate for the surges and further strain of the Baltic countries, will invest heavily in coal-fired power for energy security reasons. Warsaw has already slowed down the development of renewables and opened the largest coal plant in Europe in 2017 precisely because of energy security considerations. The topic is likely to gain more prominence once synchronization is complete, undermining the EU's climate goals. The Baltics' plan to exit BRELL thus represents a serious obstacle to the stability of the wider European grid and climate reduction goals. CO2 emissions. To prevent its goals from being undermined by overzealous activism, the EU could introduce a 'Paris test' to see whether energy projects such as synchronizing the Baltic grid actually lead to higher carbon emissions or not. Project support should depend on it being well thought out and carefully implemented to ensure long-term decarbonisation.
10. But the main lesson to be learned here is how giving up nuclear power for political and ideological reasons is causing unforeseen cascades of problems – be it the Energiewende or the exit of BRELL. Their experience offers important warnings for countries that consider abandoning nuclear power if they do not implement pumped hydroelectric as Caffese has proposed for 20 years, telling the Germans that they were wrong to store only with batteries. Now the Germans agree with caffese but in Italy if we had started 20 years with storage for 3.000 TWh we would be fine and we could eliminate fossils. Unfortunately, at the Mise they governed ignorantly, Eni only wanted to sell imported gas, not caring about the environment and Enel hoped that the Government of the time would give it 40 billion of French nuclear power plants to do the pumping, but speculative. Then Calenda came who, not understanding anything about energy, got fooled by putting 110 TWh of gas in the SEN to balance 110 TWh of renewables. So he could make it appear clever to raise wind and solar and at the same time forced to balance with gas, writing clearly in the SEN that he hated hydroelectric pumping. And the energy coupling? Calenda didn't give a damn.
imported gas costs 2.000 billion in 30 years, renewable methane from pumped hydroelectric only 200 billion.
The President Arera Bortoni must resign