“The energy that unites us”: this is the title chosen by Terna for the inauguration of the power line in Favazzina (RC). Sorgente-Rizziconi, which connects Sicily to the rest of the country through Calabria. A record-breaking energy bridge, waiting for the one - to be built above the surface of the sea - open to the movement of people, which will be presented today in the presence of the Prime Minister Matteo Renziand local institutions.
An important work, which arrives with a slight delay: it should have been inaugurated a year ago, saving Italian bills over 600 million euros already this year. Instead, it took a double appeal to the Supreme Court to unblock the construction site, frozen by bureaucracy and by a investigation for alleged violations of landscape regulations, which proved to be unfounded.
The work, which required 700 million investments, involved over 100 companies and gave work to more than 2 workers.
Now, however, we are finally here: it will therefore be Renzi who pushes the button which – 12 years after the start of the works – will put the new submarine cable (300 meters deep for a total length of the bridge of 105 km) which connects the electricity lines between Calabria and Sicily. A work costing around 700 million, completed by Terna, the public company led by Matteo Del Fante, which manages the entire Italian high-voltage grid, of which Cassa Depositi e Prestiti is the majority shareholder.
The new work will replace the existing one, but by now old and inefficient: the new cable runs further north, to avoid currents and electricity dispersion. In addition to being much more powerful and, therefore, conveying a greater flow of electricity in a southerly direction. The new high-voltage cable electrical connection was produced and delivered just yesterday by Prysmian, for a 300 million order: the underground installation was technically among the most complex ever built, with a 300-metre vertical shaft and an inclined tunnel 2,8 km long and with a 12% gradient. The 380 kV alternating current (HVAC) submarine cable is made up of two circuits with a total length of approximately 44 km, of which 38 km for the submarine part.
The work will therefore save money on the bills of Italians and will make it possible to produce less CO2: because, at the moment, the old cable does not allow the regular "dispatching" of electricity from Calabria to Sicily. And the island's old grid is unable to support the weight of the energy produced by renewable plants. This means that Sicily is an island in itself also from an energy point of view: the demand is thus satisfied mostly by only two power plants, one of which runs on fuel oil. And a part of the renewable energy produced is not actually used. But finally now we turn the page.
