“L'Italia non spenga il Sole” is the title of the book I wrote together with Livio De Santoli, which we presented in the Senate press room on 23 July, on the eve of the vote on the so-called competitiveness decree, which introduced an absurd tax on self-consumption of solar energy and a retroactive penalty on incentives.
For some years now, a campaign has been under way in Italy to discredit the production of energy from the sun, by emphasising the costs on electricity bills for the support of renewables while underestimating the enormous potential — including technological potential — of solar energy as the true energy of the future.
In 2009, together with Antonio Noto, director of IPR Marketing, I promoted the Solar Observatory of the Univerde Foundation, with the aim of monitoring Italians' opinions on solar energy and other energy sources, also adding focus sections on related topics such as green building, storage, smart grids and energy efficiency.
We have presented these surveys approximately twice a year on the occasion of the main gatherings of sector operators and the Green Economy, and we have now reached the eleventh report on "Gli italiani e il solare" (Italians and solar energy), presented at the most recent Solar Expo in Milan last May.
It is clear that Italians believe in solar as the energy of the future, despite all the attempts and the considerable resources invested in both official and covert communications aimed at destroying that credibility.
Italians continue to hold a positive view of incentives as well, despite the campaign that sought to attribute to solar energy alone the costs of an energy bill laden with many other levies — a bill that, moreover, since 1992 has seen billions of euros earmarked for renewables end up going to incinerators and oil refineries, through the notorious trick known as CIP6.
But back then no one protested, because the oil and waste lobbies paid — and still pay — for advertising space, journalists, politicians and much else besides.
And I still remember the public attacks, and above all the covert ones, that I received for having abolished CIP6 for the oil industry and incinerators.
It is precisely this strong and enduring support from Italians for solar as an energy source for the future that prompted me, together with Livio De Santoli, who coordinates the Solar Observatory, to produce this publication, drawing on some of the most significant tables from the eleventh report and on Antonio Noto's analysis.
We would like members of parliament, the government and other representatives of national and local institutions — as well as the many solar energy producers, from the smallest to the largest — to be aware of what Italian citizens think, not in a one-off poll but in the only longitudinal series that has been tracking their opinions in this field for years.
That is why "L'Italia non spenga il Sole" seeks to defend citizens' right to produce energy from the sun, and Italians' right to an energy future of their own choosing — not one dictated by the fossil fuel lobbies.
We would also like to restore some truth about Italy's outstanding solar performance over these years, and in doing so to support the hundreds of thousands of families, serious businesses, professionals, experts and environmental activists who have committed themselves over these years to producing this type of renewable energy.
We must counter, with the force of data and truth, proposals to tax the self-production and self-consumption of energy produced from the sun — thereby blocking the shift to distributed generation — or to revise sector regulations retroactively and unconstitutionally, destroying serious operators and facilitating the sell-off of solar installations to speculators.
The decree-law of 24 June 2014 is only the latest attack on solar energy. We call on parliament to intervene, but also on the renewables world and all Italians to organise themselves to defend every citizen's right to produce and exchange renewable energy in a sustainable way. This is to the benefit of both the environment and consumers' pockets.
Life senator and Nobel Prize winner Carlo Rubbia also took part in the book launch. He excellently and voluntarily led the task force on thermodynamic solar energy that I established at the Ministry of the Environment in 2006, and he recently gave an interview to Teleambiente in support of solar energy, which I have included in the links in this book.
The book also contains contributions by Livio De Santoli on energy communities — which eloquently illustrates the prospect of a future in which solar will truly be the engine of change — and by Angelo Consoli of Cetri (Centro per la Terza Rivoluzione Industriale) with his analysis of the European context, as well as a contribution by Jeremy Rifkin, also included in the useful links.
Also contributing are Rosario Trefiletti (Federconsumatori), Elio Lannutti (Adusbef), Antonio Noto and Fabio Patti of the Solar Observatory.
We will update this book with further news and research, and we have already sent it to all members of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.
It will then be available both in bookshops and online, and can be requested by email from the Univerde Foundation: write to [email protected].
I hope in this way to offer a small contribution to the more than 500,000 Italians (households and businesses) who produce energy from the sun, and to the tens of millions of our fellow citizens who, according to all surveys, want a solar rather than a fossil future.