Turin. Everyone wanted clean energy even before the war, chasing the ecological transition. Everyone wants it even more today, dreaming of independence from Russia and Vladimir Putin. “It takes eighteen to twenty-four months,” Minister Roberto Cingolani said several times. The problem is that hearing about timing causes hives to those who really invest in green plants. And it inexorably collides with the bureaucracy, against the mayor of a mountain town who raises his finger and blocks everything, against a technical opinion that is missing and sends everything to the air. According to Legambiente estimates, in Italy it takes five years to authorize a wind farm, compared to the six months required by law.
A study by Althesys says that an average green plant requires seven and so 50% of the projects end up in the drawer, because at some point it is better to give up and change direction.
History
“We don’t want to give up, but the situation is absurd” blurts out Alberto Balocco, a biscuit industrialist. His adventure in renewables is a surreal paradigm. In Trinità, in the Cuneo area, home to a logistics hub of the group extending over 16 thousand square meters, he already had solar panels for 0.6 megawatts, sufficient for his energy needs. Last year he decided to triple: from 0.6 to 1.8 megawatts, to put the extra energy on the grid and monetize it, pending that perhaps in the future, with the expansion of the site, that electricity cannot serve to the group. Balocco puts a million and a half euros on the plate. An investment? “Yes, but above all the beginning of a via crucis” he says as he leaves yet another service conference with local authorities. Everything has been ready for eight months and we have not started because there are two municipalities: to pass the cables and connect the system to the national grid you have to pierce the asphalt that has just been redone and it seems a pity to the Municipality of Fossano, so ask to redo the project; pylon and cables should also pass over the river Stura, and to the landscaping commission of the Municipality of Trinità it seems like a mess. All stopped, all to be redone. 1.2 megawatts of electricity frozen, that is the needs of about 500 families. «All in order not to puncture a bit of asphalt and a few aerial cables with minimal impact is an absurd situation – says Balocco -. We do not give up and on the contrary we make another 1.8 million euro investment in our Fossano plant, but the truth is that when it comes to demagogy, there are hundreds of cases like ours. And in addition to the damage, we also suffer the insult of having to pay a fine of 25 thousand euros to the provider to which we had undertaken to supply the energy: the plant was ready, it seemed there were no more obstacles “.
The cap
There were already hundreds of plants in the queue in recent years, an almost incalculable quantity, lost in the myriad of authorizing bodies and regulations that change from region to region. Then 50 were added to produce biomethane from waste, blocked by a sudden change in legislation. Certainly now there is a great thirst for energy to complicate things. In the last year – the general director of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage Federica Galloni explained in Parliament, who has a specific delegation to activate the Pnrr and the integrated plan for energy and climate – authorization requests have jumped from 84 to 575: 170 for wind and 405 for photovoltaics. Without a corresponding upgrade of the offices, the funnel is quickly explained. The government took action first with the Simplifications Decree and then with the Energy Decree with a series of interventions that, in the intentions, should shorten the time by a fifth “and already in the first months of the year we had visible effects”, he said Cingolani commenting on the executive’s measures. For companies it is not enough: “Every measure to simplify the bureaucracy of renewables is positive, but a broader reform of organizational processes and an overall energy planning are needed” says Agostino Re Rebaudengo, president of Elettricità Futura, the association born from the merger between Assoelettrica and assoRinnovabili and which brings together over 500 companies in the sector. «With the DL Energia – continues Re Rebaudengo – the areas to be considered certainly suitable for the development of renewables have been expanded. But the Regions postpone the authorizations. In general, the point is that, although we will certainly do better as a country now, the comparison is with the little or nothing we have done in the last 5 years, and certainly we will not be able to realize the renewables necessary to cut 20% of gas imports. . We do not yet see the same haste, the same urgency for renewables that apply to regasifiers and the incinerator in Lazio ».