Defence: major tender for renewable energy installations on military sites

The main course of action was reiterated by the Defence Minister, Guido Crosetto, who – in line with Italia’s need to accelerate progress towards its green targets – has set out a rigorous roadmap to bring about a turning point in this regard, even within the defence sector, with a view to achieving energy independence. This latest development will now receive a major boost from the large-scale tender launched by Difesa Servizi, the Ministry of Defence’s in-house company, led by Luca Andreoli, which is responsible for managing and optimising its assets. The procedure, which has just been published in the Official Journal of the European Union and the Italian Official Gazette, aims to develop 23 military sites (totalling 900 hectares) for the installation and operation of facilities to generate electricity from renewable sources, through a 25-year concession awarded to private investors, who may submit their bids by 15 October. This is the first major tender launched by the company, and it is highly likely that others will follow in order to achieve the energy self-sufficiency outlined by Crosetto in his strategy.

“The generation of energy from renewable sources is a necessary step towards ensuring greater energy self-sufficiency for the defence sector and will also have significant and positive repercussions for the country as a whole,” Luca Andreoli, CEO of Difesa Servizi, explains to *Il Sole 24 Ore*, adding that “the company will play its part – always drawing on private investment – in a much broader process aimed at developing a new energy-focused mindset across the entire sector”.

It must be said that the tender that has just been published – worth around 770 million euros – represents a key milestone in a process that began some time ago, as the manager himself explains: ‘The company has responded to this need and, together with key commercial partners, by making the most of the Ministry of Defence’s assets, has helped to install solar power systems since as early as 2012, covering barracks and military sites. Today, as well as upgrading those systems, it is committed to building new ones, exploring the implementation of systems to help make better use of green energy’. It is estimated, in fact, that, using currently available technology, photovoltaic systems with a total capacity of around 500 megawatts could be installed, capable of generating more than 650,000 megawatt-hours annually.

This large-scale tender therefore provides a significant boost. Its implementation is also in line with Article 20 of Decree 17 of 2022 (the Energy Decree). As you will recall, that measure established that the Ministry of Defence, including through Difesa Servizi, could grant concessions for or directly utilise, in whole or in part, military state-owned property or any property used by the Ministry for any purpose, in order to install new green energy facilities. As these areas are automatically classified as suitable – in accordance with the provisions of Decree 199 of 2021 – they can therefore benefit from faster approval procedures.

Returning to the tender, the sites in question are organised into three blocks, and the investment required to construct the solar farms will be borne by the private operators who are awarded the contracts (the tender specifications estimate, for each lot/site, an average investment of 700,000 euros per hectare of usable area). The sites include areas and building roofs on which to install and operate solar farms, with the green energy produced being supplied to the Ministry of Defence. Furthermore, the departments within the Ministry involved in implementing the green energy self-consumption schemes will pay producers a lower rate per kilowatt-hour than the current rate for the same supply, thereby reducing the Ministry of Defence’s annual energy expenditure. This will combine the acceleration of the green transition with a reduction in costs.