An aid against expensive bills, in which the GSE will be the pivot around which to deliver to small and large energy-intensive companies that additional gas from the Italian fields that the Government allocates to them at an agreed price. Or as a promoter role of biomethane, the gas that comes not from the fields but from the fermentation of organic materials. Or even in assistance to the Ministry of Ecological Transition for the initiatives for the use of green hydrogen. In other words, the energy transition that the GSE is working on is allied with the objectives of reducing dependence on foreign countries and moderating the madness of prices. These are some of the issues on the table of Andrea Ripa di Meana, economist, married, one son, sole director of the Energy Services Manager since last summer. «The Energy Services Manager was created to manage the nascent incentive mechanisms and to act as the parent company for other companies; then the GSE was also entrusted with other markets and now we also deal with environmental aspects, such as, for example, we are the national management body of ETS, the European emission trading system. In short – adds Ripa di Meana – today in the role of the GSE the axis that goes from energy to emissions to energy saving and the circular closure of the supply chains is welded ». Very different supply chains, such as the newborn formula of energy communities, the new agricultural sector now under examination, such as the energy efficiency of public offices.
Gas (and electricity) to industry
Among the tasks being studied by the Government is “to carry out the conveyance of approximately 2 billion cubic meters of gas extracted from Italian mining concessions to long-term contracts or recipients defined by the ecological transition”, recalls the sole administrator of the GSE. The recipients will be mainly energy workers and small and medium-sized enterprises with high energy intensity or particularly exposed to international competition on the cost of energy. The methane experience could also be extended to electricity. For example, the GSE could collect and manage significant quantities of renewable electricity to sell it to businesses at fair prices. As Ripa di Meana said in a hearing in the Chamber’s Environment and Productive Activities committees, gas would be “extracted from the spot price circuit, opening a path that can be replicated in other forms also in the electricity sector. We are ready, should this measure be adopted, to channel quantities of energy from the stock exchange to long-term contracts ».
Approaching standards
The sole administrator looks at the rules now being studied for the new frontiers of clean energy. “Raising the threshold for access to the single model to 200 kilowatts will make incentives for new photovoltaic systems faster and easier. For agrivoltaic plants, what is meant by agrivoltaic plant must be well defined and guidelines are needed to understand how to evaluate and certify the compatibility between agricultural and energy activities “. Furthermore, the GSE was asked to help define an incentive mechanism for the production of green hydrogen “and we are doing it, despite the complexity of the analysis of supply chains still in the process of being formed”.
Reduce time and bureaucracy
«In the GSE I found a company with a wide range of skills, also for the future of the system, we had to select the most complex or recurring critical procedures to understand how to reduce times and increase efficiency. Our role is not just to provide funds but to manage a complex system that provides services and accompanies businesses, citizens and public administrations towards an energy transition. At the end of the year – assures Ripa di Meana – we will be able to improve the processes not only of qualification but also of verification ». We often complain about the slowness of the bureaucracy in authorizing renewable projects, with 170 thousand megawatts of projects awaiting development concentrated in a few, very few regions, especially Sicily and Puglia. He confirms the sole administrator: «The Government is working and has already implemented a series of measures to speed up the conclusion of the authorization process. Regions that have to reconcile complex authorization processes with the objectives of the Government can count on the assistance of the GSE, as well as sector associations and in particular those sectors in distress such as energy workers and hard to abate».