Coal: Italy accelerates power plant switch-off

The timetable for the closure of the last coal-fired power stations (phase out), after the maximisation programme put in place between September 2022 and September 2023 to limit gas consumption downstream of the sharp reduction in Russian exports to Europe due to the conflict in Ukraine, is reiterated in the latest National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (Pniec) sent by the government to Brussels at the end of June. Where, first of all, account is taken of the definitive decommissioning of the four groups of Enel's Fusina power station, in Veneto, for a total of 760 megawatts, and of the thermoelectric plant with a capacity of 600 MW, also owned by Enel and located in La Spezia, to which A2A's Monfalcone power station (315 MW) must also be added. Which, although it has not yet been formally decommissioned, as of April 2024 is no longer qualified for the energy markets, and where the last entry into operation dates back to September two years, the period in which, as mentioned, the plants began operating at full speed again to enable the country to cope with the energy shock due to cuts in Russian supplies to Europe.

Now, according to the timetable indicated in the Pniec, the completion of the phase-out process will require the decommissioning of the other coal-fired plants (Civitavecchia, Brindisi, Sulcis, Fiume Santo): a total of about 4,650 megawatts of power, of which 1,000 MW in Sardinia alone.

On the island, in order to arrive at the definitive switch-off, certain conditions will have to be ensured by the combined provision of further development of renewables, storage, and two new interconnections by Terna with the continent, such as the Tyrrhenian Link, the double connection between Sicily, Sardinia and the peninsula, as well as Sacoi 3, the project to renew and upgrade the existing submarine electricity link between Sardinia, Corsica and the rest of Italy. Only downstream of these elements, the government points out in the Plan, will the technical security conditions of the network necessary to complete the abandonment of coal in electricity production (a total of about a thousand megawatts) be ensured, which should therefore start in 2025 (the date scheduled for the actual commissioning of the storage capacity contracted in Sardinia for the 2024 capacity market auctions) and conclude between January 2028, when the first cable of the western branch of the Tyrrhenian Link will come into operation, and January of the following year with the completion of the double submarine cable.

The next steps will therefore concern Enel's two plants in Brindisi and Torrevaldaliga Nord, in the municipality of Civitavecchia, whose production has been close to zero for some time now, excluding the parenthesis of the maximisation programme linked to the war between Russia and Ukraine. For both, as Pniec also points out, the phase-out process is scheduled to be completed by 2025. And on both plants, two committees have been set up, at the input of the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy, working to identify solutions for the future of the sites. For each, under consideration by the committee are numerous projects with concrete potential for realisation (about eight for Brindisi and about five for Civitavecchia). In particular, several business initiatives with a focus on offshore wind power are emerging around the Apulian power plant in order to take advantage of the call for tenders published in April by the Ministry for the Environment and Energy Security, following Energy Decree 181 of 2023, by which at least two ports in southern Italy will have to be identified to develop shipbuilding linked to the development of offshore wind power in our country. While at the Civitavecchia site, a mix of solutions prevails, ranging from logistics to the transformation of some plant structures for industrial purposes.