Key points are the Tyrrhenian Link and the regasifiers in Portovesme and Porto Torres
CAGLIARI. The “Sardinia decree” on energy has been in force since yesterday. The text, which is not popular with the President of the Region Christian Solinas but also with the mayors of most of the territories concerned and with Legambiente, has been published in the Official Gazette and starts the timing for a series of works that will have to make the island self-sufficient and , above all, green, from an energy point of view. The decree identifies the works and infrastructures necessary to phase out the use of coal and to decarbonise the industrial sectors of the region, in accordance with the provisions of the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan. For the Government, the works to be carried out constitute “interventions of public utility, which cannot be postponed and urgent”, and the administrations concerned must assign “priority and urgency in the obligations and assessments of their own competence”.
Among the works considered indispensable is “the creation of a new generation capacity with a renewable source and adequate energy storage resources”. The future grenn of the island translates into a series of infrastructures of the electricity system that will be built by Terna Spa. In particular, the Tyrrhenian Link, the submarine cable that will connect Sardinia to Sicily, at least in this first phase. It is a bipolar line with a total capacity of 1000 megawatts and a series of compensators that should allow the two coal-fired power plants to be shut down and the availability of 550 megawatts of production capacity with batteries both in the north and south of the island.
The extension of the national gas transport network is also envisaged, also for tariff purposes, which, however, can only take place through a “virtual” connection. Natural gas will be transported by sea thanks to a series of newly built infrastructures. The regasification terminals already existing in Panigaglia (in Liguria) and off the coast of Tuscany, will allow the loading of LNG on barges, while two regasifying vessels of the “Floating Storage and Regasification Units” (FSRU) series will be moored in the port of Portovesme for the South of the island and serving the metropolitan city of Cagliari, and in Porto Torres for the north and the metropolitan area of Sassari. Also planned is the construction of three coastal deposits in the Oristano area (Higas, Ivi and Edison, which have been studying an expansion of their capacities for some time) and a possible deposit also in the port of Cagliari. From these three points will unravel the networks – partly already built – that will serve the whole island. Only the Nuorese which would be served with tankers would be excluded.
It will be the Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and the Environment (Arera), within six months from the date of entry into force of the decree, to define the regulatory framework to allow, for at least five years, that the distribution tariffs are “in line with those of tariff areas with similar costs “. In practice, the prices of gas (and subsequently also that of electricity) should re-align with those of the rest of the country.
Tariff equalization is the first of the points considered critical by the Region, especially due to the exclusion of the province of Nuoro. President Christian Solinas had already expressed “concern and disappointment” for the launch of the Dpcm, underlining that it is “an act imposed from above” and that “Sardinia cannot accept that decisive choices for the coming decades are unilateral”.