Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The strategies put in action by Sweden are 360 and aim at reaching the ambitious
goal for the city of Stockholm to be a totally fossil free city by 2050.
In this way, the energy plan of 2008 is subordinate to the Regulatory Plan
(Costantino and Riva Sanseverino
2012
) in agreement with the decisions of the
Municipality of Stockholm taken in March 2010. Besides, a major cooperation
exists between Municipalities and energy distributors to find the best installation
areas for components and plants for the distribution system; them both supporting
the use of remote heating systems and the use of renewable sources for private use.
The production of energy in Italy instead is still strongly constrained by the use
of fossil-fuel based generation systems.
The choices of energy policy in Italy have been strongly biased by the exis-
tence, since many years, of public monopoles in the energy field. The main fossil
fuels extraction and distribution company ENI and the Italian power distribution
company ENEL are still controlled by the Italian Ministries of Economy and
Finance. The slow pace at which all political decisions go in Italy due to a dra-
matic mix of bureaucracy and individualism puts constraints over the possibilities
to modify a route, although recently ENEL has been investing in new and greener
technologies (ENEL green power) and has been on the forefront for remote
measuring systems production and installations.
As in Sweden, also in Italy, reaching independency in the energy sector would
be a desirable goal. Italy depends on imports for most of its fossil fuels. It now
produces only 10 % of the natural gas it consumes, compared with 90 % in the
early 1970s. Production has fallen steadily while demand has increased, driven
largely by growing demand for electric power: 40 % of Italy's natural gas con-
sumption is now for power generation.
Russia and Algeria are currently supplying two thirds of Italy's gas needs,
through pipelines via Austria and Tunisia-Sicily. In 2009 natural gas was
responsible for over half of electric power generation (60 %), coal 12 % and oil
8 %, the renewables sources including hydropower supplying the remaining 20 %.
The dependency from other countries has produced in Italy quite high energy
prices in Europe and the third highest increase of the energy price in the industrial
sector in the years 2011-2012, above 15 %.
The reason of this is two fold: the dependency from other countries and the mix
of primary sources for producing energy in Italy, which is unique in the European
scenario.
Following a 1987 referendum Italy banned nuclear power, but the government
reversed this decision in 2008. Recently, following the events at Fukushima, a
moratorium on nuclear suspended new nuclear developments. As a result, electric
power prices are high in Italy.
Besides such prices also account for the incentives provided for photovoltaic
installations support (feed in tariffs) in these years and taxes. This means that the
more expensive technologies for renewable electricity can easily attain the sought-
after 'grid parity', more easily than in many other markets—and this is already
close to the truth for solar photovoltaic installations in southern Italy.
