Milan is moving towards achieving the environmental objectives ofEuropean Agenda 2030 and to reduce pollution it aims to become an increasingly electrified city. Because of this the manager of the city’s electricity network, Unareti, predicts the electricity demand for the city will double by 2050. «Today we have a peak power in Milan which, at peak, is around 1,600 megawatts: we predict that in 2050 it will be over 2,500 megawatts», confirms the engineer Francesco Gerli, CEO of Unareti, electricity and gas distribution manager. And considering that in Milan 70 percent of the properties are currently equipped with an air conditioning system, the systems of practically all new residences are no longer connected to gas but rather to induction plates and heat pumps for heating, to cope with the growing electrification of consumption Unareti is increasing investments. After the 160 million in 2023 with which the annual value was doubled compared to 2020, in 2024 the investment grew to 170 million.
For the new strategic plan 2024-2035, A2a he predicted investments of over 1.7 billion euros: the industrial plan aims to increase the power of the electricity grid, developing and renewing it with new primary cabins which guarantee a reduction in loads on the line and the reduction of faults that cause blackouts.
The last two new infrastructures inaugurated in 2022 in Rozzano and San Cristoforo, which brought the primary cabins active in the city to 13. In three years from now, another six will be added. It will be ready by the end of this year the new primary cabin in Mugello, in via Cena, between January and February 2025 the one in Comasina will be built, in via Salemi. «With the beginning of 2025 we will have 15 primary cabins which will be 21 within the next 5 years – says the CEO of Unareti –. The rate is one every year.”
The project predicts that instead they will be eighty secondary cabins, those that transform current from medium to low voltage, which will be built every year. And they will be added to the more six thousand secondary cabins already presentall connected to each other through the very long network of underground cables that cross Milan for 7,300 kilometres, 2 thousand of which are scheduled for renewal. In the last three years, 500 kilometers have already been replaced. The road works have at times also caused inconveniences linked to the presence of construction sites which open up between residential doors, shops, commercial activities and in some cases it has been necessary for the local police to remove some vehicles parked on the roads along the works which have become necessary, as happened for example in Corso Buenos Aires.
The upgrades to the electricity grid should do the trick also drastically reduce blackouts of energy in the city which occur especially during the great heat due to the overload of demand for air conditioning: «Already last summer there was a decline in interruptions – says the CEO of Unareti – Milan is investing between 160 and 170 millions of euros per year in the electricity infrastructure” and all the actions aim to develop and increase the resilience and reliability of the city’s electricity network, also optimizing the response of restoration interventions when it becomes overloaded.
