An energy saving for the Italian electricity system from 600 million euros a year (which become one billion considering also the analogous work done in the past to connect Sardinia) and a landscape – the evocative one of the Strait of Messina – which has remained practically intact. Terna inaugurated yesterday, in the presence of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, the new "Sorgente-Rizziconi" power line, the record-breaking power line that will link the Sicily region to Calabria, the rest of the peninsula and therefore Europe through the high voltage: 105 km overall of which 38 under the waters of the Strait, constituting the largest AC submarine cable in the world.
But this is not the only record of a cost work 700 million euro, one of the biggest investments in the history of the company that manages the national grid (it is the largest independent grid manager in Europe) and which will not be the last to improve the infrastructures of the South and benefit the entire country: "We have a investment plan of 6,6 billion euros – said the managing director Matthew Del Fante – of which over 2 only between Sicily and Calabria”. Prime Minister Renzi himself reiterates his commitment to the South, on his umpteenth visit to the area in a few months, waiting to close the practices of the Bridge over the Strait and of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria: “The South is an engine of growth, provided you build infrastructure like this. I promise to come back here in July to take stock of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria route, which will form part of an even bigger project that we call 'the Naples-Palermo high-speed train' and which cannot do without the construction of the bridge. We will think about that immediately after the inauguration of the new motorway next December”.
The other two records of the work which from today effectively breaks Sicily's energy isolation, revolutionizing the electricity system to the benefit of all Italian consumers, are purely technical. Once it reaches the electrical station of Favazzina, in Calabria, the power line continues for 2,8 km underground through a tunnel, to then climb vertically up to the station of Scilla, at an altitude of 630 metres, through a well with a diameter of 7 metres: “Both of these works, the tunnel and the well – underlines Del Fante -, are absolutely avant-garde and I also care underline its Italian character: in the last five years, 2.000 employees of 150 companies have worked here, 90% of which are Italian. And many will still continue to work on it for development and maintenance". The cable, for example, was made by Prysmian with a 30 million euro order: a very high voltage, 380 kV, alternating current (HVAC) submarine pipe, consisting of two circuits with a total length of approximately 44 km, of which 38 km for the submarine part.
The benefit, as well as energy and employment, is also of environmental tourism. Precisely controversies and appeals of a landscape nature have slowed down the work in recent years (it should have been ready a year and a half ago), but in this regard Del Fante provided an unequivocal interpretation key: "We made sure that cables and structures were completely underground, with no impact on the landscape and the beach. Thanks to this new network, much more powerful and less invasive, we have instead been able to remove 114 km of old pylons, returning 10.000 m40 to the territory of the two regions, equivalent to 700 tennis courts". The new connection will make it possible to use 2 MW of renewable energy, of which Sicily is a large producer but which it has not been able to make the most of until now, and to avoid CO700 emissions for almost XNUMX thousand tons. “The equivalent of seven hundred thousand cars every year, which will now no longer circulate in Sicily and Calabria”, explains Terna's managing director.
On the challenge of renewables, Prime Minister Renzi echoes him, who yesterday also paid homage to Vincenzo Nibali from Messina, recent winner of the Giro d'Italia: "Italy is the first country in the world for the share of needs covered by photovoltaic energy, with the '8%. We have reached 40% of satisfied demand thanks to renewable energy, and I assure you that this figure is better than that of France, Germany, the United Kingdom. But we mustn't stop here: the objective, which I also brought to the attention of the G7, which in 2017 will be hosted in Sicily, is to break down Europe's energy barriers”. This is why we are already looking beyond the "Sorgente-Rizziconi" problem, which Terna defines as the last existing "bottleneck" at the zonal level and which, once resolved, has created the conditions for cancel the price differential between Sicily and the rest of the country: the next objective, confirmed by Del Fante and Renzi when the ribbon was cut on the Calabrian coast, is that of 2022, when Terna will aim for a similar infrastructure that can connect Italy and Tunisia. “The connection is prospective – explained Terna's number one -. It is an ambition of the company and we have presented the project at European level. Terna holds the European vice presidency of the trade association of those who transmit high voltage energy, and the project has been approved in its first phase. We also hope to obtain financial support from Europe which formally recognizes with deeds the geopolitical value of a link between southern Sicily and northern Tunisia which is in an energy deficit”.
