Italy has committed to producing 35 percent of all energy needs with renewable sources by 2030, under penalty of significant sanctions from the European Community. In particular, our country will have to produce approximately 55 percent of the national electricity needs with renewable sources, compared to the current 36.8 percent. The largest percentage of current renewable sources is linked to hydroelectric power, which however will not see the development of further plants in the future. The necessary increase in renewable energy from now until 2030, equal to approximately 55,000 Gwh, will therefore have to be covered mainly by wind and photovoltaic power.
“The current trend is to reduce the consumption of agricultural land for the installation of large photovoltaic parks, which require large areas for energy production”, explains the professor Domenico Coiroof the Federico II University of Naples and president Seapower. “Offshore wind energy, i.e. at sea and away from the coasts, remains the only viable option, given that onshore wind energy has almost saturated the available spaces and in any case does not enjoy great acceptance by the population interested in the installation areas (see the recent opposition from the Sardinia Region)”.
Planning of maritime space, costs and infrastructures are the main critical issues that emerged at the workshop organized by the Federico II University of Naples and the Seapower Scrl applied research consortium, which brought together in Naples all the main players including universities, research bodies, industries , developers, component manufacturing companies, operators in the sector, port logistics, maritime and fishing sectors and interested organisations, with the aim of contributing to the creation of an all-Italian supply chain for the research, development and production of offshore floating wind turbines.
The workshop addressed not only the problems related to authorization procedures and environmental impact, but also the specific challenges of the Italian seas, characterized by great depths and low intensity average winds, which make the cost of energy higher than other European countries.
Due to the depths, in Italian seas it is only possible to envisage wind turbines installed on large floating platforms, anchored with appropriate mooring systems to the seabed. Therefore, approximately 20 GW of new wind power installations, mainly floating and offshore, are needed, assuming that approximately 70% of the new renewable energy installations are covered.
We currently have 15 projects in the process of obtaining the EIA, for a total of 9.6 GW and investments of around 30 billion euros and 75 projects on which the preliminary assessment procedure (scoping) is underway, which cumulate a total power of 60 GW, of which 48 have already been completed, according to the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security (MASE), which spoke at the meeting.
“The challenges of this technology, which is not yet mature, are many since, for example, in the Italian seas, the average wind speed is significantly lower than that of the Northern European sea and therefore the turbine rotors and the height of the towers must grow to be able to produce the same quantity of energy that in Northern Europe is produced with smaller rotors and therefore with systems that are overall less expensive”, Coiro continues. “An increase in the cost of turbines and their floating platforms is estimated at 65% for installations in Italian seas. These giants of the sea are as tall as the Eiffel Tower, having towers of over 110 m and rotors with a diameter of around 300 m, the floating platform alone which supports the wind tower weighs around 18,500 tonnes”.
To install the planned 20 GW, approximately 1300 floating turbines will be needed, each with a nominal power of 15 MW. There will be a need for port infrastructure capable of managing the logistics for moving, assembling and transporting the various turbine components to the site, but it will also be necessary to strengthen the electricity grid for the transport of the energy produced 20 km from the coast , to the power plants located on the ground.
“During the workshop, some critical issues were highlighted that will need to be addressed and resolved in order to accelerate the development process of this technology. As MASE highlighted during his speech, among these we must certainly mention the absence of maritime spatial planning, for which Italy is already under infringement proceedings by the European community”, comments the engineer Francesco Lioniellovice president of Seapower. “The other problem that emerged is linked to the probable inability to supply, in the right time, some fundamental components for the construction of wind farms, such as, for example, floating electrical substations, for which there is no established standard and in any case There is also a lack of specific regulations, given the lack of maturity of the sector as a whole”.
There are two possible solutions to deal with some of the problems that have emerged: continuing to create an all-Italian supply chain so as not to lose opportunities in terms of employment and economic impact for our country and creating a central body that can act as a glue for the development of this new technology.
In order to speed up and simplify the authorization process, we could follow good practices such as that of Denmark, represented at the meeting by its Embassy in Italy, which illustrated its very long experience in the development and installation of offshore wind farms. Denmark itself has equipped itself with a National Agency which acts as a link and interface element between all stakeholders, wind farm developers, the public ministries involved, fishermen and local communities, in order to manage with efficiency of the entire process, starting from the authorization process up to the installation process. Denmark has also decided, as a country, to become a direct investor in future wind farms, as it believes that in the long term energy, with particular reference to renewable energy, will be fundamental for the development and balance of the country, a foresight that we should follow.
