The Energy Regulation and Markets Review - Stikeman Elliott

Italy
started in 2012 in Isernia for an advanced smart grid including smart programmable and
metering-capable household appliances, non-programmable renewable input prediction
systems and electric car charging systems.
Renewable energy incentives have been structured over time to allow higher
remuneration of and access to separate sub-caps to certain advanced high-efficiency
technologies (e.g., solar concentration plants and innovative integrated PV plants).
ENEA and ENEL have jointly developed – and commissioned in 2010 –
Archimede, in Sicily: a pilot project for the realisation of a 5MW solar concentration plant
combined with a conventional CCGT plant that uses molten salts as heat accumulators
and vectors.
Several Italian companies, including Enel and Terna, are partners in the Desertec
initiative aimed at realising a joint African–European initiative for the realisation of solar
concentration and large-scale wind-generation plants in northern Africa and the HV DC
lines for long-range transportation of electricity to the European grid.
VI
THE YEAR IN REVIEW
i Key decisions, legislation, cases or policy changes
Some of the key developments in energy legislation 2011 and 2012 include the following:
a Approval of the Renewable Energy Decree (Legislative Decree No. 28 of 3 March
2011), which provides a comprehensive legislative framework for the development
of generation from renewable sources in Italy consistent with the National Action
Plan that was approved in 2012 and the consequent approval of the fourth Conto
Energia.
b The popular vote on 12 and 13 June 2011, which, in the aftermath of Fukushima,
scuttled the plans for revamping the Italian nuclear-generation project that had
been fostered by the Berlusconi government.
c The extension (by virtue of Law Decree No. 138 of 13 August 2011, No. 138)
of the Robin Hood Tax for fiscal years 2011 to 2013 to companies operating
in the energy-regulated sectors (despatch, transmission and distribution) and to
renewables operators (biomass, wind and PV solar), coupled with a reduction of
the revenue threshold that triggers the application of the tax to €10 million and
the increase of the relevant additional tax rate from 6.5 per cent to 10.5 per cent.
d The ‘Liberalisation Decree’ (Law Decree of 24 January 2012, No. 1, converted
into law by Law 24 March 2012, No. 27), which provided for:
• some key steps and the timeline for the unbundling of SNAM Rete Gas
from ENI;
• the criteria for the determination by the AEEG of remuneration on a
single-asset basis of investment by Terna in the grid;
• a ban on further development of PV plants on farm land; and
• the issuance by the Ministry of Economic Development of the guidelines
for a reform of the electrical market.
e The approval on 13 April 2012 of the drafts of the fifth Conto Energia and the
decree on incentives to non-PV renewables.
156