2021 was another “wasted year” for theItalia. The market for renewable it has grown compared to the annus horribilis 2020, but not as much as it could and should have. “Each year that passes this waste becomes more and more impactful, decisively pushing away the achievement of the objectives by 2030 (72% of renewable sources in electricity generation) and even more by those by 2050”.
This is what emerges from the “Renewable Energy Report 2022” of the gruppo Energy & Strategy from the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano. The installations, explains the document, have restarted with the post-pandemic recovery but the amount of new photovoltaic and wind power plants is only slightly higher than in 2019. Unlike Europe, which is proceeding at a much faster pace and is now close. to the overall milestone of 700 Gigawatts.
The ability to renewable installed in Italy during 2021 was a total of 1.351 Megawatt, with a 70% increase in power compared to 790 Megawatts in 2020, when it had decreased by 35%. This has led the country to exceed the threshold of 60 Gigawatts: the increase was driven by the new photovoltaic capacity (+ 30%), followed by wind and, more distantly, by hydroelectric, while bioenergy is even decreasing. .
“The recovery is still too slow – he warns Davide Chiaroni, Deputy Director of Energy & Strategy – With this pace, in 8 years we would arrive at a wind and photovoltaic park of just over 50 GW, far from the goal (increased with the Ecological Transition Plan) of a total installed renewable between 125 and 130 GW “. To reach this quota by 2030, the installation rate will have to be four times higher than the current one for wind power (about 1.75 GW / year against the current 0.38 GW / year) and seven times higher for photovoltaics (about 5.6 GW / year versus 0.73 GW / year).
In reality, the report points out, something has been done and the good news is that the solutions to be implemented exist and are available to policy makers and operators in the sector. But the road is still long, especially in light of the (few) funds that the Pnrr provided for renewable energy. Just under 6 billion euros divided as follows: 1.1 for the development of agro-voltaic; 2.2 for energy communities in small municipalities; 0.68 for the promotion of innovative systems; 1.92 for the development of biomethane.
“However, they are single specific projects that do not form a structured plan – he objects Chiaroni – Integrated and coherent planning is therefore essential, because the actions planned for the next few years will determine our strategic positioning in the future global economic system. Huge investments will also be needed: between 40 and 50 billion euros by 2030, without considering those for the accumulation and upgrading of network infrastructures. Therefore the conditions must be created for the financial market and international investors to play an active role in the development of the sector ”.
Meanwhile, due to a regulatory framework that is still too little simplified, the 7 calls prepared by the Fer1 decree ended with unsatisfactory results: “Participation remains low during 2021, due to the intermittent issuance of authorizations, which left an unassigned quota to be filled with further calls planned for 2022”, concludes the report.