Renewables, more than 70 per cent of projects are suspended pending green light. Demand for new authorisations plummets

Two offshore wind farms in Apulia: one in the Gulf of Manfredonia dating back to 2008 and the second in the waters of the southern Adriatic Sea. The latter, after a decade, won a positive opinion with prescriptions from the Technical Commission in 2023, but to date remains blocked almost 15 years after its presentation. These are just some of the stalled projects according to the latest Legambiente report presented during the Rimini Exhibition.

As of January 2026, out of 1,781 renewable energy plans currently under evaluation, 69.3 per cent are still awaiting the conclusion of the Via Pnrr-Pniecc technical investigation. Also on the list are 160 plans that need a determination by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, 45 more than last year, while 88 are blocked by national and regional cultural heritage institutions, 80 of which by the Ministry of Culture.

According to the report, the number of new projects subject to Environmental Impact Assessment dropped by 75 per cent in 2025. Instead, there are 108 stories of blockages to renewables mapped on the Peninsula, 18 of which will be censused in 2026. Wearing the black jersey is the Heel of Italia with the most negative cases surveyed (14), followed by Veneto, Umbria, Basilicata and Sardinia (10). For example, there is the 23 MW wind farm project proposed on a former quarry and landfill in Ariano Irpino, in the province of Avellino, which was rejected by the Superintendence for the presence of an archaeological constraint ignored during the waste emergency. Another park with its hands tied is Med Wind, 2.8 GW of renewable power, between the municipalities of Marsala and Favignana, capable of meeting the energy needs of 3.4 million households.

"The renewables sector," says Stefano Ciafani, national president of Legambiente, "must be supported and encouraged, not hindered and slowed down. Companies and territories must be given certainty with clear timeframes and rules. The growth of renewables in Europe, but also the delicate international geopolitical situation also related to the dependence on fossil fuels, and the worsening of the climate crisis require our country to accelerate on clean sources, abandoning fossil fuels and the senseless race to nuclear power".