The new public swimming pool should be inaugurated on the Amiata at the end of the summer, three pools, one Olympic-sized and two smaller ones, for the residents of Arcidosso And Santa Fiora. Then there are countries that, with the money obtained from the underground geysers cultivated by the power plants, renovate buildings or football fields, redo the frames of public buildings, asphalt bad roads, redevelop squares and historic centres. And, obviously, they expand the district heating network, which has now become a sort of distinctive sign of the hills with golden steam.
Geothermal energy for them – 16 municipalities and 35,500 inhabitants among the provinces of Livorno, Pisa, Grosseto and Siena – it is a wealth that is also measured in the current account, thanks to much lighter bills and compensation funds. For the rest of the Tuscans, it is almost a joke. According to the calculations of Nomisma Energy and some organizations such as Artthe Energy Reseller and Trader Association, the 36 geothermal plants in the area could yield between 600 million and one and a half billion euros on the market every year.
A value that would even quadruple from 2019 with the growth in energy prices, quintupling in 2022, the year of the crisis that broke out with the war in Ukraine. Yet, only crumbs would arrive in Tuscany. Almost. But it is an economic and social issue that is about to reach a fundamental watershed, because after fifteen years from the last agreement, on 30 June the ten concessions with which the renewables spa controls an energy wealth that produces 6 billion kilowatt hours every year, 34% of the region’s needs.
Eugenio Giani knows how much you weigh for the Tuscany such a source of supply. For this reason he decided to manage the dossier personally, taking responsibility for geothermal energy, depriving the environmental councilor of it. Monia Monni. Not a punitive “scalp”, rather a choice agreed with her. Of course, a symptom of different visions. While Monni did not exclude the possibility of putting active concessions out to tender, the governor chose the path of extension. The renewal is ultimately legitimate, indeed even suggested by the Energy decree passed by the government in November 2023.
The provision allows the extension upon presentation of a development plan for the territory by private individuals. And, after a fortnightly proposal of 2.7 billion, Giani would have managed to extract from Enel the promise of a twenty-year investment of 4 billion euros. Safe money regardless of energy price fluctuations and therefore business risk. But where does all that potential wealth go?
Until now, not only would geothermal energy not have been a business for the public coffers, where Enel has been paying unchanged concession fees and rather low royalties for years (in total we are talking about 30 million per year), but not even for Enel itself, because the prices of price lists applied to the sale of energy generated by the Tuscan plants would have been blocked and would not have followed the fluctuations of the electricity exchange. In short, the electricity coming from the siphons of geothermal countries is fed into the grid with old tariffs and in advance of the time of consumption, on the basis of prices significantly lower than those set by the electricity exchange. Prices set by blocked contracts which would not allow Enel to take advantage of the market and grind out the “extra profits”.
What numbers are we talking about? The value of electricity is calculated by multiplying each megawatt hour produced by the so-called Pun (single national price), the one applied for the purchase of electricity on the electricity exchange. In 2019 the average price was 53 euros per MWh. Therefore, multiplied by the 6 million megawatt hours produced in Tuscany, we could have reached a turnover of around 300 million. In 2022, in the midst of the European energy emergency triggered by the conflict in Ukraine, the PUN rose to around 250 euros per megawatt hour. So, in practice the geothermal pie in Tuscany was potentially worth a billion and a half. Since the beginning of 2024 the Pun has fallen, and the average price has leveled off at around 100 euros. Thus, if it remained stable until the end of the year, the geothermal potential would have returned to around 600 million euros.
Even if Enel sold the energy generated in geothermal power plants on the market by applying the PUN, production costs would still have to be subtracted from these figures. Nomisma estimates that they are around 10 euros for each megawatt hour, others speak of 30 euros per megawatt hour. In any case, experts exclude the possibility of returning to the values of a Pun similar to that of five years ago. But how much ends up in citizens’ pockets? Almost all 35,500 residents of the geothermal municipalities are connected to a district heating network powered by heat extracted from the earth between Larderello and Chiusdino, between Pomarance and Castelnuovo Val di Cecina or on the Amiata. And having steam instead of methane to heat water means benefiting from savings ranging from 50 to 80% on your energy bill. However, there are no direct savings on the electricity bill, unless determined by market discounts applied by Enel to citizens living in the area.
What about compensation funds? Every year the Region passes on to the Municipalities between 7 and 8 million euros, proceeds from royalties assigned based on the value of production. The latest resolution is from a few weeks ago and distributes to the 16 Municipalities of the geothermal areas 7,552,948 euros for the production of 2022 and 8,607,866 euros for that achieved in 2023. The richest Municipalities are Pomarance and Castelnuovo Val di Cecina. They will have a total of 4.5 and 3.3 million euros respectively.
