Brindisi, Senec leaves a 200 million project on hold

Senec Italia's investment in Brindisi, the EUR 200 million project that was supposed to bring a plant for the production of photovoltaic cells and modules to the industrial area, remains in the balance. The start-up of the plant for the production of solar panels, with a workforce of 300 people, had been temporarily removed from the company's plans for 2024, but as of today the updates still seem insufficient to make it sustainable.

Determining the probable step backwards is the state of regulatory uncertainty in the field of renewable energy, a framework that is still in a transitional and undefined phase, which does not allow an entire production chain to see a possible continuity and longevity of the business guaranteed.

'To sum up,' explains Vito Zongoli, CEO of Senec Italia, 'there has not yet been a change in the decision to invest in the factory. In recent weeks we have certainly seen an opening on the part of politics to create regulations, but at the moment nothing has yet been published. It will probably find its way into future laws or decrees. We are there watching for something to move, but even the regional regulations do not help, because there are regions that are blocking practically everything and others that are instead simplifying this type of investment. There is a need for central coordination, because even if a national law is passed that allows plants to be built, it is useless if the regions indicate a very limited number of areas suitable for development.

Over the past two years, 90 per cent of the photovoltaics installed in Italy have been residential, so policies such as the Superbonus have helped the sector, especially the invoice discount. Today, the tightening of verification procedures has often made the situation unmanageable, with credits difficult to settle and companies in dire cash-flow difficulties. "There are billions of euro in companies' tax drawers that cannot be converted," Zongoli continues. "The government should find a solution as soon as possible, because companies' coffers are missing more or less 80 billion, which is what is still floating inside the tax drawers. If this money continues to be missing, many of the companies operating in this sector will collapse, and they are on the verge of taking their books to court'.

What seems to be missing, therefore, is a long-term programme that guarantees the survival of an entire industry and investment to be maintained in southern Italy or at least in Italy. This brings us to the crucial issue of agricultural areas and the preservation of the landscape as a function of advanced agri-voltaic plants. Although institutional incentives are consistently quantified, the return on investment for companies is practically non-existent. "The costs for the installation of photovoltaics in agriculture are so high that they are not economically viable," Vito Zongoli continues, "but agrivoltaics will be one of Senec's assets next year. In fact, we are studying a proposal that can be economically sustainable and that also finds a solution to the inaction of the land, which is now abandoned also due to the general demographic decline in Italy. There are no longer any new generations willing to take over their parents' cultivation business, so many areas remain abandoned and will never be reused for agricultural purposes. Our and the associations' proposal is to take land that has been abandoned for more than five years and use it for renewable energy'.