Immediately after the presentation of the new industrial plan, which covers the five-year period 2018-22, Terna's CEO, Luigi Ferraris, flew to the United States to illustrate it to international investors but also to forge new partnerships based on innovation and internationalization of the group which, together with the acceleration of investments and their full sustainability and the generation of growing profits and dividends, represent the heart of the new course of the electricity group. A partnership agreement has been reached with Tesla to find solutions for energy storage aimed at giving safety and flexibility to the electric grid on board the car and a permanent observatory has been planned in San Francisco, where an office will be opened together with the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, to closely follow the evolution of information technology and Californian startups and which has its point of reference in Stanford University.
Innovation and internationalisation, which also involves cross-border electricity interconnection projects, are Terna's present and future, but visually the new business plan will materialize above all in the leap in quantity and quality of infrastructure investments in Italy, which have their unmistakable compass in systemic (and therefore also financial), environmental and social sustainability.
They talk about all numbers first. The commitment to the growth and sustainable development of electricity grids from North to South put in place by Terna's new business plan to 2022 translates into 5,3 billion euros of investments in infrastructure works, an increase of more than 30% compared to the previous Plan, all dedicated to the Italian network, and necessary to respond to the new needs of the electricity system, increasingly directed towards complete de-carbonisation and towards a greater diffusion and availability of resources from renewable sources.
Over the five-year span of the plan, Terna has planned the construction of important electricity backbones in Italy with a significant impact and positive effects on the local economy. Terna's investments will be divided as follows: 1,8 billion of Euro dedicated to North part, 1,6 billion of Euro al Centro e 1,9 billion of Euro in the South and will give work to over 3 people every day, or more than 80% of Terna's workforce distributed as follows: 1.221 employees concentrated North, 1.488 at the Center and 844 to the south.
But together with the work of the employees, essential for the implementation of the new industrial plan will be the contribution of thousands of supplier companies (mostly small and medium-sized), mainly civil and electromechanical (but also electronics, construction, services) , in hundreds of construction sites, which means involving approximately every year 2 thousand suppliers, mostly Italians (over 95%).
But what are the main infrastructural works in the pipeline and which territorial areas will Terna's plan invest in? For the development of the grid and to increase the exchange capacity between the different areas of the Italian electricity market, the following works are particularly noteworthy:
- al North part, the “Laguna Veneta” submarine connection, the “Colunga-Calenzano” power line (between Tuscany and Emilia Romagna) and the progress of construction sites for the “Italy-France” interconnection
- al Centro, the “Elba-Continente” submarine connection, the “Gissi-Foggia” power line (between Abruzzo and Puglia), the progress of the construction sites for the “Italy-Montenegro” interconnection and the start of work for the new SA project. CO.I.3 (Sardinia, Corsica and the Italian peninsula)
- al South, the new “Capri-Sorrento” submarine connection, the “Deliceto-Bisaccia” power line and the “Paternò-Pantano-Priolo” (Sicily), as well as the start of work on the “Chiaramonte-Gulfi-Ciminna” (Sicily).
The numbers are important but the fact that Terna's main new plants will be underground or submarine – this is where the sustainability strategy materializes – makes the difference in terms of quality compared to the past.
The group led by Ferraris is also planning the ranalizetion of thethe networks in the main metropolitan areas of the country which will concern in particular the cities of Milan, Rome, Naples and Palermo and will mainly involve the replacement of old infrastructures with new technological and sustainable cables with the aim of improving the quality and safety of the electricity service.
Finally, Terna's new plan provides for the implementation of a series of preventive actions for enhance the security and stabilization of the electricity grid mitigating the impacts of the climate on the lines: around 20.000 so-called anti-rotational devices (in 2016 there were only 6.000) located in the main areas at greatest risk of snow phenomena, to mitigate the risk of the formation of ice sleeves by limiting the accumulation of snow on the conductors. The quality will also pass from here.
