Minister Roberto Cingolani has presented the programmatic guidelines for the energy transition. Let's see whether they match the recommendations of the leading environmental and business organisations.
A serious ecological transition, itself based on a rapid energy transition that definitively abandons fossil fuels in favour of renewable energy, can no longer be postponed. On 12 February, Roberto Cingolani took up his role as head of the Ministry of Ecological Transition. Approximately one month on, we publish a list of recommendations gathered by some of the leading environmental and industrial organisations, useful for the purposes of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) that Italy must submit by the end of April 2021.
In a hearing before the Senate Committee on Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Cingolani stated that the ecological transition must reconcile the environment, energy and development. According to Greenpeace and Legambiente, to meet the CO2 emissions reduction targets set by the European Commission for 2030, it is necessary to reach 70 per cent of energy production from renewable sources on the electricity grid, whereas the current National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (Pniec) envisages only 55 per cent. Without increased investment in renewables and interventions on the electricity grid, it will therefore not be possible to meet the European targets.
Increased investment in renewables and an update to the Pniec are two of the issues that Cingolani has already shown he has taken into consideration. Since the NRRP is still a work in progress, however, the list of projects that can be developed is unknown, as are "the financing arrangements, development timelines and their geographical location", as the leadership of Confindustria elettricità futura, the trade association of the Italian electricity sector, points out. "No less important is the introduction of the structural reforms that should stimulate our country's productivity. I am referring in particular to the reform of the administrative system of our country and the necessary digitalisation process."
Furthermore, on this point, Greenpeace has already delivered to the government led by Mario Draghi the report Italia 1,5, commissioned by the environmental organisation from the Institute for Sustainable Future in Sydney, which contains an energy transition scenario centred on the total decarbonisation of the country. "According to our calculations," explains Luca Iacoboni, climate and energy campaign manager at Greenpeace, "by 2030 Italy would see the creation of 163,000 new jobs: an increase of approximately 65 per cent in direct employment in the energy sector."
The minister for ecological transition has already spoken of a bureaucratic transition, meaning the streamlining of the approval process for renewable energy plants. This is a point welcomed by environmental organisations and, all the more so, by the business world. "Currently, it takes 8 years to authorise a wind farm. Too long," Iacoboni of Greenpeace points out. Elettricità futura takes the same line, with its director Andrea Zaghi adding: "The excessive bureaucracy in the permitting phase is indeed the main obstacle to the ecological transition. It is essential that the public administration trains, in terms of both numbers and expertise, the staff who will be called upon to examine the new authorisation applications aimed at delivering the 65 gigawatts of new renewables between now and 2030 and achieving the Green Deal."
In its observations document submitted to the Senate Committee on Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Elettricità futura notes that the initiatives provided for in the draft NRRP in favour of the energy transition appear to be limited to a few technologies and areas of intervention, while "the investment opportunities for the recovery of disused industrial areas and abandoned agricultural land are being overlooked," Zaghi adds. "We need to develop 50 gigawatts of new photovoltaic plants, of which 35 must necessarily be ground-mounted. To ensure the even development of solar across these areas, we are also asking for access to the renewable energy decree auctions for these plants as well." What the association is therefore proposing is to promote the development of ground-mounted photovoltaic plants on agricultural land as well, "starting with land that cannot be used or is not being used in rural areas, and new agrivoltaic initiatives characterised by a strong synergy between agricultural production and energy production."
Legambiente adds the issue of hydrogen. Strictly green. On this, the environmental association clarifies: "It is essential that European resources be concentrated solely on the development of green hydrogen, that is, hydrogen produced through renewable energy plants. No grey hydrogen production plant (from fossil fuels) or blue hydrogen plant (from methane associated with CO2 storage facilities) should be financed in our country. Hydrogen produced through fossil fuels, even when associated with carbon capture and storage systems, cannot be considered a sustainable solution from an environmental or economic standpoint."
For his part, in the hearing before the Senate Committee on Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Cingolani expressed his support for green hydrogen as "a decidedly preferable energy source," but also added that, to achieve the target of 72 per cent of renewable sources by 2030, it is necessary to be capable of thinking in terms of a mix of energy carriers, one that varies considerably over the years.
According to Legambiente, the contributions still in force today for fossil fuel energy production plants in various forms, and the tax exemptions on gas consumption, "no longer have any reason to exist, now that renewables are competitive and electrical end-uses are more efficient." For this reason, Legambiente emphasises that the government must update the catalogue of environmentally harmful subsidies, which in Italy are worth 20 billion euros each year.
Referring to the draft Pnrr presented on 12 January (therefore before the Draghi government took office), Asvis notes that the reduction of environmentally harmful subsidies will need to be achieved through clear, multi-year planning that is consistent and integrated with the lines of action of the Green New Deal on environmental, energy and fiscal policy, "to avoid distortions between member states, proportionate and appropriately communicated". It must also allow businesses "the progressive and gradual adaptation to the new reality, including in relation to the technologies concretely available, and provide adequate support for productive reconversion".
In short, according to the Alliance, a timetabled path must be defined for the reduction and reconversion of environmentally harmful subsidies (Sad) in favour of sustainable development, starting with fuels for civil aviation, road haulage, agriculture and fishing. "To facilitate this process, we must not simply hand out economic compensation to the sectors concerned," Asvis adds, "but rather offer systemic alternatives and alternative means of transport and production, based on renewable energy sources and in particular on green hydrogen".
Finally, the energy transition also runs through the renovation of buildings. Currently, the Pnrr "lacks a plan for the decarbonisation of the building stock," emphasises Pierluigi Stefanini, president of Asvis. And yet, homes are responsible for more than a quarter of national energy consumption, and despite modest population growth, since 1990 energy consumption in the residential sector has increased by 23 per cent.
According to the Fondazione per lo sviluppo sostenibile (Susdef), it is necessary to increase the rate of renovation of the existing residential building stock, extending the 110 per cent bonus and renovating 2 per cent of buildings every year between now and 2030. Over the current decade, therefore, a major acceleration will need to be given to the process of renewal and energy efficiency improvements to the existing building stock.
Susdef's forecasts in this regard are optimistic: the energy renovation of the building stock will, for the first time, bring about a significant reduction in energy consumption, estimated by Susdef at around 21 per cent. If, at the same time, the consumption of fossil fuels is halved and renewable sources grow by more than 70 per cent, the energy requirement of the building sector will rise from the current 17 per cent to 25 per cent by 2030, and the sector's emissions, also thanks to the growth of renewables in the national electricity generation mix, will be more than halved.