WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIE - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria: Energy sharing does not pass through the State (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 In recent months, interest has been renewed around energy communities,

or it would be better to say fears have returned. Coincidentally, it was
the institutions that created a bit of a stir. It took the European
Commission more than a year to evaluate the ministerial decree with
which the Meloni government finally wanted to start giving some certain
indications. And after receiving the laborious approval, the government
still took another few months to write a decree of about ten pages where
the most important decisions are postponed. The latest news in this
sense are the 159 pages drawn up by the Energy Services Manager at the
end of February which indicate an infinite series of bureaucratic
obligations, formalities and requirements that will make your head spin.
Camurries that test even the most willing person and that reveal the
real will of the State: if you want to share energy you can do it, but
in our way and without affecting the profits of Eni and Snam and Terna,
which are ultimately also the ours given the shareholding that the State
holds in each of these companies.

Let's go in order. We have already written about energy communities in
recent months, here we will simply remind you that the energy community
is made up of people, public or private bodies who produce, manage and
use the energy of one or more renewable energy systems (usually
photovoltaic or wind ). This form of self-consumption occurs through
voluntary membership of a legal entity, which is the primary condition
for being able to access the economic benefits, namely the 5.7 billion
in incentives provided by the government. This is a first hitch which
not only clashes with the possibility of informal membership but which
makes only the energy communities that adhere to state criteria
economically advantageous. Another problematic aspect concerns the
nature of the incentives themselves: more precisely, 3.5 billion euros
will be guaranteed through a tariff incentive, which will be financed
with a levy on the electricity bills of the entire Italian population,
to guarantee communities a advantageous electricity tariff; the second
allocation, of 2.2 billion, comes from the National Recovery and
Resilience Plan, is a non-repayable contribution and will serve to
finance up to 40% of projects for the construction of plants in
municipalities with fewer than 5 thousand inhabitants. Cracks are
opening up on this front too, which have so far been kept quiet by
supporters of renewable sources without any ifs or buts.

Given that the energy transition must necessarily be based on these
forms of energy, why must the energy communities of a few, let's say
many if we want to be optimistic, have to be paid for by everyone
through direct or indirect taxation? Why not push for them to be paid
through the extraordinary speculative profits obtained in recent years
by energy companies? In any case, four years and one long series of
decrees and resolutions. A period of time during which the hundreds of
energy communities set up throughout Italy were waiting to understand
how to activate the state incentives and the PNRR funds allocated during
construction to support self-consumption projects. With the result that
the driving force behind energy sharing has in the meantime been
somewhat lost. And above all it is still regulated by the State, which
in fact has set a series of limits that partially block its potential.
For example, the constraint of connection to the primary substation for
end customers and for production plants, or the maximum size of the
latter (one megawatt), have ensured that the communities emerging so far
are, and will be, of medium-small. Let it never happen that we can cause
great inconvenience to those who manage energy in Italy.

Likewise, companies like Enel, instead of opposing the energy
communities that in theory could have undermined their national
dominance, have begun to act as consultants to the Municipalities; who
on the other hand, in the absence of specialized personnel, were happy
to delegate the complex organization, forgetting that in addition to
economic convenience, in theory the energy community is focused on
sharing an increasingly essential good such as energy. Furthermore, at
the explicit request of the European Commission, companies in difficulty
cannot access the incentives due to state aid legislation. Never let the
State start supporting the real economy, rather it is better to take on
the debts of failing managements such as the former Ilva or the former
Fiat - there state aid is fine for the Commission.

Another underestimated aspect on which energy communities could
intervene more widely is that of energy poverty. It is no coincidence
that in a very early formulation the renewable energy communities were
known as CERS, i.e. solidarity. And so they remained in the meaning of
some experiences such as those promoted by Legambiente in Naples, of the
ènostra cooperative and of other realities. An idea that was instead
lost in the measures arrived at by the government. This is why in our
opinion the greatest effort must be placed on awareness and
self-organization. To try to push where the State stops instead.

There are quite a few Municipalities that are taking action, attracted
above all, beyond the rhetoric, by the possibility of obtaining extra
revenues thanks to the sharing of energy with which they can offer a few
more small services, perhaps voted for by the same people belonging to
the energy communities . However, this model does not resolve the
centralization of the energy system, it simply allows those who have the
means - photovoltaic systems, a home of their own, cultural tools, the
possibility of following a bureaucratic practice for years - to carve
out small spaces of autonomy. The real cornerstone of energy communities
should be local energy production, to be provided for example to those
who cannot afford to install a photovoltaic system or to those who are
renting or to those who don't even have a home, in any case freeing
people from supplies of electricity and gas by large companies. It is a
slow but necessary process, in which it is necessary to insert the
partial opening of the States to undermine the oligopolistic model of
fossil fuels.

Andrea Turco

http://sicilialibertaria.it
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