Cerzeto wind farm, the 18 MW project now in limbo
by N.Am.
The 'Cerzeto' wind farm was to be built on the ridges between Mongrassano and Cerzeto, in the province of Cosenza. An 18 megawatt plant, proposed by STHEP Srl, with wind turbines over 200 metres high and an estimated investment of over 17 million euro. Today, however, the project is at a standstill. Not definitively rejected, but blocked in the decisive phase of the authorisation process. The Cerzeto wind farm is therefore the case of a green plant that has been stopped before the green light is given. A story that shows the paradox of Calabria's energy transition: new megawatts are needed from clean sources, but without solid preliminary investigations, guarantees and convincing projects, even wind remains blocked.
The matter exploded on 20 April 2026, during an open municipal council meeting in Mongrassano. There, administrators and citizens lined up the critical issues of the project: location, distance from homes, hydrogeological risk, acoustic impact, service works and economic guarantees. One of the points raised concerns the ratio between the value of the investment, estimated at over 17 million, and the share capital of the proposing company, indicated at 10 thousand euro.
Three days later came the administrative step that turned the political case into a technical one. By memo prot. 331746 of 23 April 2026, the Calabria Region's Department for Environmental Sustainability froze the application for the single authorisation, asking for about 40 project integrations within thirty days. The documentation was deemed incomplete.
The Region's demands concern the central points of a renewable plant: grid connection, distances from built-up areas, electromagnetic fields, acoustic impact, forest constraints, civic uses, possible cutting of olive groves, financial solidity, and deposits for decommissioning and site restoration. Without adequate answers, the project risks not going ahead.
The case is exemplary because it does not only tell the story of local opposition to wind turbines. It tells of the point at which many renewable energy projects come to a halt: not on the paper of energy objectives, but in the transition between industrial proposal, authorisation, territorial constraints and public guarantees. In Calabria, the issue is even more sensitive because inland and mountainous areas are often fragile and poorly infrastructured.
