Sustainability

The current state in Italy

In some respects our country is behind schedule in attaining the objectives established by the European Community even though there are some signals that raise our hopes for the coming ten years. In Italy, over 75% of the energy generated by clean sources is obtained from hydroelectric power whose potential, however, is already exploited over 70%: further development is possible with mini hydroelectric energy, with small plants that are able to harness small drops in the water level. 15% of the energy is obtained from biomasses and waste material, 11% from wind and photovoltaic energy and 11% from geothermal energy. Between 1996 and 2006, however, in Italy CO₂ emissions increased by over 12% while in the same period the energy obtained from clean sources increased by about 1% only: although research for new technological solutions has led to important results, different factors have influenced the delay. Broadly speaking the main problem is that in Italy renewable sources of energy are still in the sidelines of the general development of the country. To attain the objectives of 2010 it is necessary to reconsider the potential of renewable sources and it is in new technologies regarding solar, wind, mini hydroelectric, geothermal and biomass energy that the major efforts must be made.
Following the example of the communes
A very comforting datum is the trend that has been prevailing in the last years: the single municipalities in Italy, in fact, have been the unequivocal protagonists of the exploitation of clean sources, so much so that in some cases they have been recognised as model examples by the European Community.  A continually growing number of municipalities has tried to attain energetic autonomy thanks to the direct exploitation of the sun and wind, of micro-hydroelectric power and of biomasses so much so that today over 100 municipalities in Italy are self-sufficient with 100% renewable energy. Technological research and the discovery of new materials facilitate a continuous trend towards a decrease in the cost of the technologies: as far as photovoltaic energy is concerned, for example, costs decrease 50% every ten years. Consequently, for the single municipalities, not only has it become more and more accessible to invest in technologies that are able to make the most of the resources present on the territory, but also the energy distribution network grows shorter, allowing greater savings. A confirmation of the soundness of this trend is the important result obtained by the Varese Ligure Municipality that was awarded the title of “the best rural community of the EU for having carried out the most complete and original project of sustainable development”: the municipality, in fact, in just a few years, has reached complete energetic self-sufficiency using exclusively clean sources, deriving 7 GWh from wind energy and 23 thousand kWh from solar photovoltaic energy each year , and simultaneously developing different intervention projects to promote the environmental quality of the territory. Hence it seems necessary to proceed in this direction, dedicating time to studying energy resources at a local level with targeted researches in every area of the country so as to draw up a detailed chart of the renewable energy sources present in Italy.