Renewable energies: a leading sector in the green transition, grappling with ever new challenges. Rising raw material prices, cyberattacks, rising turbine costs and too low award prices in tenders are just some of the issues that renewable energy risk managers will have to face. This is what emerges from the latest report “Geopolitics, inflation and the energy transition – Where do renewables go from here? Renewable Energy Market Review”, of the consultancy and brokerage company Wtw (formerly Willis Towers Watson). Renewables will remain the primary focus of the global energy transition, but risk managers will face a new complexity: converging the need for zero-emission energy, an unstable global macroeconomy, and rising demand for renewable energy against a reduced offer.
Late investments
The international geopolitical context has helped push European countries towards the adoption of new energy supply models. “Despite the increase in investments in the renewable energy sector, the current growth rates will not be sufficient to achieve the goal of a zero-emission economy set for 2050 – comments Eva Mariani, head of natural resources at WTW Italy -. According to the International Energy Agency, investments in the global clean energy sector are currently equal to about 2 billion dollars a year, while it would be necessary to increase to 3.5 billion by 2030 to then remain stable at that level until 2050, so as to reach the pre-established climate neutrality in that year”.
The cheapest technologies for generating renewable energy are solar PV and onshore wind. «It is estimated that the capacity deriving from photovoltaic plants is destined to triple in the period 2023-2027 – adds Mariani -. A type of renewable that is much discussed is clean hydrogen, which could contribute to the decarbonisation process in sectors that are difficult to convert, such as transport and heavy industries. However, only green hydrogen, produced from renewable sources without climate-altering emissions, can play this role and the cost of using renewable energy for its production is higher than that deriving from the use of fossil fuels”.
The Italian scenario
The National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Pnrr) attributes a leading role to renewables. According to the WTW analysis, in 2022 Italy recorded strong growth in plant installations and a strengthening of pipeline projects. With reference to onshore wind, data for the third quarter of 2022 indicate 11.3 GW of installed capacity (up from the first quarter which recorded 11.0 GW), with growth of 3% and 3.2 GW of projects in the pipeline in the period 2022-2027.
Also for solar, the installed capacity increases in the third quarter of 2022: to 23.9 GW (compared to 22.6 GW in the first quarter). The growth was 6% while there are 17.0 GW of projects in the pipeline in the years 2022-2027. In addition, a potential 5 GW of offshore wind was announced to be auctioned between 2023 and 2026, and the construction of the first offshore wind farm in the country.