A single energy market for a more competitive Europe

At yesterday's opening of the event presenting the study 'Security and Energy Independence: the Transmission Grid as a Lever for Competitiveness', promoted by the Teha Group and Terna, the Minister for the Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, outlined the starting point when emphasising 'that the energy transition is a profound transformation of the daily lives of citizens and of the economic system as a whole'. But this profound transformation is part of a geopolitical scenario impacted by new wars, such as the one that has just exploded in the Middle East, which puts the issue of energy security back at the centre and makes Terna's role increasingly crucial, capable of winning recognition in the field - as its CEO Giuseppina Di Foggia recalled yesterday - as a reliable operator capable of sustaining long-term investments within a framework of institutional and industrial stability.

Investments that generate, as Valerio De Molli, managing partner and CEO of Teha Group, explained when illustrating the results of the study, 'a systemic impact that goes beyond the energy perimeter, activating value, employment and national industrial chains'.

To combine energy security and decarbonisation, it is therefore necessary to work on structural solutions. All the more so in a phase like the current one that, if the war continues, as former Prime Minister Enrico Letta, now dean of the IE School of politics, economics and global affairs at IE University in Madrid and author of the Report on the Future of the European Single Market, pointed out, "lays bare even more, even with respect to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the fact that Europe is not energy independent". It is not, the former prime minister clarified, because 'for energy, as well as for connectivity and financial markets, we have remained 27, there is no single market'. On which, instead, we need to accelerate as early as the next European Council, scheduled for 19 March, 'which is a chance to see if there is a will to make a step change or if we are living on the issues of competitiveness and integration of the single market'.

In short, the final goal is clear. And it must be pursued without hesitation even in the midst of new crises. Certainly the current one, highlighted the former president of Arera, Stefano Besseghini, 'is potentially very deep, in some ways worse than the Ukrainian one, when we had to deal with the loss of an important route for Europe, but it was only one. Here we are in the heart of primary production, with very important systemic repercussions worldwide, but today we have new tools and experience at our disposal'. But we still need to find, suggested Pietro Maria Putti, managing director of Gme (Gestore dei mercati energetici), 'technical solutions that take into account some fundamental elements that cannot be ignored: renewables are intermittent, it is a natural fact, but the system of energy production and networks needs a constant supply'. Ergo, according to Putti, we need a mix that guarantees security of supply and energy self-sufficiency. And in that mix, renewables will be at the forefront because the push in this direction, as Francesco La Camera, director general of Irena, noted, 'does not only derive from environmental benefits, but above all from economic convenience and the contribution to energy security, thanks to a more decentralised and resilient model'.

A model in which even the electrification of ports, as Antonio Iannone, undersecretary at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, pointed out, will play an important role: 'The Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport is committed to the implementation of this strategy, which concerns 37 ports: there are already ready realisations, I am thinking of Gioia Tauro, while the port of Genoa should be ready by the summer.