Legambiente presented its Renewable Municipalities Report 2013, now in its eleventh edition, which shows how the green mentality is making more and more progress on the Italian territory. In 2012, in fact, in Italy the production from renewable energies, thanks to over 600 thousand plants distributed in 98% of the Municipalities, guaranteed 28,2% of electricity consumption
They are as many as 2400, however, the Communi (out of about 8 thousand) that produce more electricity than resident families consume thanks to renewable sources, in a ranking led by Prato allo Stelvio, a tiny municipality in South Tyrol. But even larger cities stand out for their virtuosity: Cuneo, Ravenna, Terni and Foggia, for example, are able to satisfy 100% of the electricity needs of resident families. Energy prices are down, down by 22% in the hours when the contribution of photovoltaics is strongest.
But renewables bring not only energy and environmental benefits, with the drop in emissions bringing Italy closer to the standards set by the Kyoto Protocol, but also employment benefits: the number of people employed in the sector, to date, is between 100 and 120 thousand units.
However, not all that glitters is gold: in fact, the so-called incentive issue remains to be resolved, which weigh on the bills of businesses and households by around 14,9% with a growth dynamic, according to Legambiente, to be "kept under check". For the future, the model to follow is instead that of the beehive, i.e. the establishment of a network that connects many small autonomous cells to each other, which would guarantee greater flexibility.
