Italian companies are among the strongest in therenewable energy, but the investments are almost all directed outside the national borders. And meanwhile in Italy our plants are getting old and are approaching retirement. It is the sad scenario of a country where investments in clean energy they are substantial but the permissions block the energy transition. And faced with a long and complicated bureaucracy (in Sardinia the process can take up to 9 years) Italian companies are looking abroad: Erg opens new wind farms in France and in the United Kingdom, Falck Renewables adds a further 21 MW of new capacity with the entry into service of the Okla plant in Norway and, lastly, Enel Green Power España has started the construction of three plants in Cuenca.
In particular, Erg has launched the first two wind farms in the UK at Craiggore and Evishagaran, County Londonderry in Northern Ireland, with capacities of 23,5MW and 46,8MW respectively, for a total of 70,3MW. To which is added the commissioning of the Vallée dell'Aa wind farm in Pas-de-Calais, in Upper France for 7 MW. The project is the extension of the 2 MW Parc Eolien Vallée de l'Aa13,2 started by the group at the end of 2018. Once fully operational, the parks will have a total production of approximately 268 GWh per year, making it possible to avoid the emission of 130 thousand tons of CO2 each year.
While Falck Renewables adds an additional 21 MW of new wind capacity with the entry into service of the Okla wind farm in Norway. The estimated annual production of the plant is approximately 75 GWh, equivalent to the consumption of approximately 4,700 families. The Okla plant will avoid the emission of approximately 1.420 tons of CO2 per year.
Finally, Endesa, through its subsidiary for renewables Enel Green Power Spain has begun work on the construction of the Campillo Wind Cluster, consisting of three wind farms that the company will build between the towns of Campillo de Altobuey and Enguídanos, in the province of Cuenca. Campillo I will have an installed capacity of approximately 76,8 MW, while Campillo II and Campillo III will have a capacity of 91,2 MW each. The three plants will produce around 660 GWh per year, which is more than double the annual consumption of a city like Cuenca.
For the construction of these three plants, Endesa will invest 256 million euros and will hire about 350 people, boosting the employment of local workers.
Once the construction of these plants has been completed, part of the supply will be destined to Johnson & Johnson, an international health care company, with which Endesa signed a virtual energy supply contract last July, which will combine solar and wind sources. About 80% of the energy will come from the Campillo II and III wind farms, while the remaining 20% will be supplied by the Veracruz photovoltaic plant, which has a total installed capacity of 47 MW and is located in Badajoz. Thanks to this agreement, the renewable energy supplied to Johnson & Johnson will avoid the annual emission of approximately 130.720 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
According to a recent joint study by Ember (UK) and Ecco (Italy), the installation of new wind farms and solar energy in Italy is stagnant, and coal-fired plants are being replaced by gas-fired ones. The Italian target for wind and solar is only 34% of consumption against a much higher European average: Denmark (94%), Holland (72%), Spain (72%), Portugal (54%), Germany (54%) and Greece (47%). But according to the Ember/Ecco think tanks “generating energy from existing gas-fired plants is three times more expensive than from new wind and solar plants” especially with electricity prices tripling in the last year due to the increase in prices of gas.
