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On Tuesday the regional council of Sardinia approved a bill that suspends for 18 months the construction of new plants for the production of electricity from renewable sources, such as wind turbines or photovoltaic systems, with the aim of protecting the landscape and containing land consumption. It was an expected measure, because the president of the Region Alessandra Todde, center-left and newly installed, had promised it during the electoral campaign in response to the discontent of a good part of the local administrators and residents, who complain about an excessive presence of these plants in the area, with limited economic benefits according to them.
The bill only concerns infrastructures whose energy produced would be destined for sale by companies, while it does not limit those aimed at self-consumption and those of energy communities (groups of people who decide to create a local network for the production of energy through renewable sources, and to use this energy making ourselves as independent as possible from large energy companies). For example, it will be possible to continue to build photovoltaic systems on the roofs of condominiums to generate the energy necessary for their consumption.
The measure will have to be approved by the Regional Council, but in the meantime the council has already said it wants to modify the regional landscape plan, i.e. the so-called mapping of the territory, to delimit the areas suitable for the construction of these plants in the future.
After approval, Todde explained to journalists that the objective of the measure is to stop “the irreversible modification of our territory”, taking the time necessary to rearrange the rules and negotiate the map of suitable areas with the State. According to Todde, at the moment there is «a “wild west” with a regulatory void», also caused by the «inertia of the Region» in recent years, which would have allowed the unlimited construction of plants on the regional territory. The issue is not new, and the previous council had also attempted several times to block its construction.
Todde specified that “there is no punitive intent for the ecological transition, which must take place”, but in her opinion the requests for the construction in Sardinia of plants for the production of energy from renewable sources are too many: from the data she cited there are requests from companies that want to build new plants for 58 gigawatts, more than 10 times the power needed by the island.
According to data from Terna, the company responsible for the national electricity grid, as regards wind energy alone – whose infrastructures have the greatest impact on the landscape – with 617 systems installed, Sardinia is the sixth Italian region in terms of wind power, equal to 1,186 megawatts and 9.5 percent of the national total. And it is in seventh place for energy density, with 49 kilowatts installed per square kilometer against the Italian average of 41.
