Italy initiates a first decoupling of the price of electricity from that of gas. The Minister for Ecological Transition, Roberto Cingolani, has announced that he has signed the “Energy release” decree which allows the direct sale of electricity produced from renewable sources and withdrawn from the GSE to interruptible companies such as energy-intensive ones. “I signed the Energy Release ministerial decree which dedicates 18 terawatt hours, with a GSE mediation, to the industrial category of interruptible products at a controlled price of 210 euros per megawatt hour, at a time when electricity costs over 450. It is less than half : this will be awarded with GSE auctions and we hope it will reduce the energy bill for energy users. We are studying something like this on gas and we will see later », announced Cingolani, referring to the project to increase the extraction capacities of operators in Italy in exchange for administered sales prices to companies. The minister then foreshadowed a process of alignment with the measures on the so-called “decoupling” that the European Commission is adopting.
“The Commission has ruled on a price of 180 euros per megawatt hour as a ceiling on generation from renewable sources – he said – so we are close enough. We will be very ready to adjust to a lower price. We did what we could also by evaluating the cost to the community. That of 210 euros is not a low price, but we must also take into account the fact that investments cannot be inhibited »in the sector.
Urged by journalists, Cingolani returned to talk about the negotiations at European level for the adoption of a price cap on gas and expressed optimism about the possibility that by the end of the month we can converge towards a shared solution along the lines of what Italy has proposed. .
«Last week we had a meeting of energy ministers in which we still had to discuss what approach to take on the price cap. There was still no address – he explained-. After a heated discussion, the majority of member states admitted that the price cap was the only European way to put a limit on the fluctuations of the FTF. The Commission has been given a mandate to draw up a proposal by the end of the month: this was not there before the meeting. In recent days we and 4 other member states have been called with the technicians to discuss the final package on the price cap in the Commission. An extraordinary council of energy ministers was convened on 30 September to close this affair. Then there was talk of a cap only on Russian gas and it was found that it would have been anomalous to have a cap on one type of molecule and another identical one, produced elsewhere, no. The trend now is to talk about a generalized cap for methane arriving from gas pipelines, not on LNG. On September 30th we must necessarily converge on this thing. We can have excellent chances that the proposal will be carried out ». Cingolani also reassured on the level of gas stocks reached in Italy and on the fact that the plan for any rationing is more than adequate compared to what the EU may require.
“Regarding the quantities of gas, I repeat that the government’s work has made us safe – he said -. Today we have stocks at 86.7%, the target was 90% at the end of October. We are early: today (yesterday, editor’s note) I signed a letter that instructs Snam to go a little further, if we manage to reach 92/93% we will have more flexibility in the moments of maximum winter absorption, hoping that there will not be ” .