With the new Decree-Law No. 181, which was published on 9 December and came into force the following day, the government adopted a measure that intervenes across the board in the energy sector, providing for measures with three different purposes: support for energy-intensive companies; promotion and development of renewable sources; and national energy security and decarbonisation.
Below are some of the most significant innovations.
1. Article 1 of the Energy Decree intervenes in support of energy-intensive companies: in the case of several competing applications for the concession of public areas for the construction of plants for the production of electricity from renewable sources, projects aimed at satisfying the energy needs of entities registered in the list of energy-intensive companies established by the Cassa per i servizi energetici e ambientali (CSEA – Energy and Environmental Services Fund) will be preferred. These projects must be carried out directly by the energy-intensive enterprises, even through aggregation, or by third parties with which the enterprises themselves sign forward supply contracts for renewable energy, for a total power output of at least double the one being returned.
For the first three years, GSE will be able to anticipate the effects of the construction of these plants, guaranteeing renewable energy at a price in line with the costs of the technology, which must be repaid in the following 20 years.
2. Article 2 follows the same direction, promoting new procedures by GSE for the long-term procurement of domestically produced natural gas at reasonable prices, based on existing or new concessions. Natural gas may be purchased as a priority from gas-intensive industries.
The last paragraph of the provision intervenes, instead, in the area of national energy security, reinforcing the centrality of already authorised on-shore LNG regasification terminals, whose construction and operation, as well as the related infrastructures, are considered as strategic interventions of public utility, which are urgent and cannot be postponed.
3. For the purpose of promoting and developing renewable sources, Article 4 provides for the establishment of a new fund to finance the adoption of compensation and environmental and territorial rebalancing measures in regions that host RES plants. The fund will be maintained with a share of the proceeds of CO2 auctions for an amount of up to 200 million euros per year until 2032 and with a contribution, equal to 10 euros for each kW of power, from the owners of renewable source plants with a power exceeding 20 kW, authorised to start from 2024 and for the first three years of operation of the plant itself.
A subsequent decree of the MASE – Ministry of Environment and Energy Security will establish the methods and criteria to allocate the fund’s resources among the regions, taking into consideration, as a priority, the levels of achievement of the annual installed power targets.
4. With the same purposes, but also for the purposes of national energy security, Article 8 aims to promote the creation of a national strategic hub in the sector of design, production and assembly of floating platforms and electrical infrastructures functional to the development of shipbuilding for the production of wind energy at sea.
To this end, a notice is to be published for the acquisition of expressions of interest by the Port System Authorities, for the identification, within two ports in southern Italy, of state-owned areas earmarked for the construction of infrastructures suitable for ensuring the development of investments in the shipbuilding sector.
5. Finally, two measures adopted to guarantee energy security and decarbonisation should be mentioned.
The first, set forth in Article 7, concerns the regulations for the issuance of permits for experimental projects for the storage of CO2 within depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs.
The second, set forth in Article 11, provides for the possibility for territorial entities whose areas are not included in the National Map of Suitable Areas (Carta Nazionale delle Aree Idonee – CNAI) to self-candidate to host the Technology Park – within which the National Radioactive Waste Repository will be built – on their territory.
The Energy Decree must be converted into law by 7 February 2024.
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