Wind power in Italy: how much energy is produced and where

Destined to become a protagonist of the Italian energy balance, wind power is a renewable source that is ready to take off. And while the quantity of wind power transformed into electricity on Italian soil doubled over the first decade of this century, a further significant rise is expected during the second decade, with the probable achievement of the historic milestone of satisfying 10% of national energy needs. When we speak about Italian wind power, we are mainly referring to plants installed on dry land, the so-called onshore plants. The other possibility, offshore plants, is potentially feasible but for now remains challenging due to historical and natural reasons, bureaucratic obstacles and its lower yield compared to other regions, such as northern Europe. The first 40 years of electricity production from wind power in Italy For thousands of years, humankind has been harnessing the power of the wind. In Italy, and on seas, lakes and rivers all over the world, since time immemorial sailing boats and ships have been using the wind to propel them. Even two thousand years ago, air currents were exploited to ventilate buildings and wind was transformed into mechanical energy. There are no precise historical sources, but it is believed that windmills have been present in Sicily for at least a thousand years, when they were used to extract salt from the seawater. Over the course of the centuries, wind power has also been used to grind flour, transport water and drain land. The great leap forward arrived with wind turbines, capable of transforming wind power into electricity, either for immediate use in the vicinity or to be transported or stored. Even though the first pioneering experiments date back to Scotland at the end of the 1800s, in Italy the origins of producing electricity from wind originated around a century later, during the 1980s. Since then prototypes and experimental plants have been multiplying in Italy, beginning with the coordinated action of the National Organization for Electric Energy (ENEL) and the National Agency for the new technologies, energy and sustainable economic development (ENEA). Progress was incremental but slow: the total of what was installed since the advent of wind power up to 1995, in fact, was less (both in terms of installed capacity and the number of turbines) than what was achieved in 1996 alone. And in 2004, for example, in all of Italy there were still only 120 wind plants installed, for an overall capacity of 1.1 gigawatts. The expansion of wind power then advanced erratically, peaking in the two-year period 2000-2001, and growing rapidly between 2006 and 2012. This irregular growth pattern often meant that wind turbines could not always be upgraded to the so-called Best Available Technologies. Wind power’s rise continued throughout the 2010s, but the history of Italian wind power is, above all, a very modern narrative. Where are the wind plants in Italy? Wind energy is not distributed in a homogenous way across Italy’s regions, but is predominantly concentrated in Southern Italy. According to data from the Energy Services Manager (GSE) published in the wind energy report at the end of 2019, Puglia alone is responsible for a quarter of the national electricity produced from wind power, followed by Sicily with 18%, Campania with 14%, Basilicata with 13% and Calabria and Sardinia both with 10%. If we look beyond regional boundaries, however, it is possible to come up with an alternative geographical description. In fact, the heart of Italian wind power production is the southern part of the Apennine ridge, prevalently the eastern side. Moreover, wind energy is also being harnessed in significant quantities on the large islands, thanks to favorable natural conditions. Another peculiarity of Italian wind power concerns the deployment of individual plants. While until 2012 larger plants prevailed, for almost a decade now smaller sized plants, including residential plants, have become the preferred option resulting in a proliferation of installations of limited capacity. Typically, each of these plants has a capacity of between 20 and 200 kilowatts. How much wind energy is produced in Italy? In quantitative terms, according to estimates for 2020, installed capacity across the entire national territory exceeded 11 gigawatts, after having reached 10.2 at the end of 2018 (with 0.5 GW growth on the previous year) and 10.6 at the end of 2019 (+0.4). In 2020 in particular, annual growth is estimated to have been even higher at just under one gigawatt. In the same way, the effective energy obtained from wind power also grew: while in 2014 Terna announced that the threshold of 14 terawatt hours had been achieved for the first time, in 2018 the total easily surpassed 17 TWh (17.7 TWh according to GSE). The year 2019 was even better: the Renewable Energy Report 2020 estimated 15% annual growth, bringing the figure for electric energy generated over 12 months to around 20 Terawatt hours (20.6 according to the data from the National Wind Energy Association- ANEV). This was then surpassed in 2020 when, according to the report Renewables 2020 by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the wind power sector saw important growth of at least 5%. Concerning the actual number of plants installed, Italy’s recent history shows that growth was quite modest until 2014. In that year, in fact, the total number of plants installed across the country reached just over 1,800 (almost 500 of which were installed in 2014 alone), before rising dramatically in the following years: 900 new plants in 2015, the same number in 2016 and then another 2,000 in 2017. In these years, small plants in the residential sector have clearly dominated, bringing the Italian total to more than 5,500, tripling the number of installations compared with 2014 but increasing installed capacity by a mere 20%. According to ANEV, at the end of 2019 the total number of wind power generation plants in Italy exceeded 7,100. Interesting facts about wind energy As one can easily imagine, the Italian regions with the greatest installed capacity of wind power are also those that produce more energy and that possess more generation plants. If we look even closer at local level, examining the geographical distribution of plants as well as demographic data, some interesting features emerge. For example, even though Puglia is clearly the leader in Italy for installed capacity (both in absolute terms, with 2.5 gigawatts recorded by the end of 2019, and per square kilometer), the top region if we consider the number of inhabitants is Basilicata, which has 1.7 kilowatts installed per capita. In this ranking Molise is in second place with 1.1 kilowatts per capita, while Puglia is in third but lagging substantially behind with a figure of 0.6. Next are Calabria and Sardinia (0.5), Sicily (0.3), Campania and Abruzzo (0.2), while all of the other regions stand below the level of Tuscany’s 0.o3 kilowatts per capita. At the national level, Italy can count on just 153 watts of installed capacity for each inhabitant and 30 kilowatts per square kilometer. In spite of the fact that the country is evidently moving at two different speeds when it comes to exploiting wind power, the data shows that this energy source is becoming increasingly important in the Italian renewable energy scenario. Aside from its overall growth, at the beginning of this century wind power accounted for just 2.1% of national green production, while this share increased to 11% in the first decade and reached 17.5% at the end of 2019. And even though this progress is forecast to slow down slightly for a few years, it is conceivable that by 2030 it will reach a share of 20%. The big wind power projects being developed The future of wind power in Italy is set to develop along at least three courses of action. The first, and perhaps easiest to imagine, is the installation of more new wind turbines in suitable areas of the country, both in terms of resources and environmental constraints. Many regions have potential sources of wind power that have not yet been harnessed and these could be activated within just a few years: according to estimates by ANEV, in the coming years those regions could be able to contribute at least a further two gigawatts of installed capacity. The second area of intervention concerns upgrading and modernizing existing plants, an activity known as repowering. Improvements in performance thanks to pioneering technological solutions will ensure an additional 8.5 gigawatts of national capacity by 2030, according to a study by ANEV/Studio Elemens. This aspect also includes the so-called solar towers, installations that capture solar energy through photovoltaics and wind power at the same time. Last but not least, there is offshore wind power, on floating platforms: ANEV predicts that the first gigawatt of installed capacity could plausibly start being generated by 2030. As well as benefitting the country’s energy transition, all this could provide a significant positive impact on employment. Green jobs linked to wind power, in fact, could number over 67,000 according to ANEV’s forecasts for the period from now until 2030, with a significant impact especially in Puglia (11,600), Campania (8,600), Sicily (6,800), Sardinia (6,800) and Lazio (5,500). A third of these will be direct employees and two thirds indirect. The most likely scenarios Agencies and analysts agree about the significant growth of Italian wind power by 2030, which would mean a doubling in the space of a decade. The GSE, for example, estimates that in the 2020s installed capacity will reach 19 gigawatts, and the energy generated annually will see a 100% increase compared with the beginning of the decade, passing from 20 to 40 terawatt hours. The wave of incentives in the three-year period 2017-2019 resulted in increases of 1.4 gigawatts and 2.2 terawatt hours; an even more relevant effect will result from the expiration of many incentives between 2023 and 2028. The repowering of plants that will be necessary in order to retain the subsidies could translate, according to the GSE, into 6.1 gigawatts and 11 terawatt hours of further growth annually. Italy’s National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC), drafted by the Ministry for the Environment, predicts a similar trend. By the middle of the decade in 2025, it should be possible to achieve half of the planned increases, reaching a threshold of 30 terawatt hours of energy produced annually, with a target of 41.5 terawatt hours by 2030. In the same vein, ANEV also estimates 31.1 terawatt hours for 2025, while it is slightly more optimistic for 2030, raising the bar from 40 to 42.2, confirming meanwhile the target of installed capacity of 19.3 gigawatts, including offshore and onshore plants. So, what promises to be a genuine boom in Italian wind power is set to begin taking shape in the early years of this decade. In 2020, Italy was in fifth place in Europe in terms of overall installed capacity (data from a Wind Europe report), behind Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and France, but falls below tenth position if we consider capacity in relation to each nation’s geographical size and falls even further behind if we look at per capita production. In an international context that is seeing a substantial acceleration in the exploitation of wind power, the coming years will be decisive for Italy.

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Wind power in Italy: how much energy is produced and where

Wind power in Italy: how much energy is produced and where