Europe’s biggest utility bets on Italy green power to lift business

Bloomberg

Europe’s biggest utility is betting on an Italian green power renaissance to lift business. Enel SpA expects Italy’s new national energy strategy to reverse a decline in green power generation by encouraging companies to help meet ambitious new goals, according to Antonio Cammisecra, chief executive officer of the utility’s renewables unit.
“There will be a great renaissance of renewable energy sources in Italy,” Cammisecra, CEO of Enel Green Power SpA, said in a phone interview. “The industrial sector should start to invest to fuel exports and technology developments.”
A shift would come as a relief to Italy’s green electricity generators. Power produced by renewable sources tumbled 16 percent from 2014 levels over the 12 months ending October 31 after incentives were reduced and utilities reve-rted to more traditional thermal generation. Power from higher-polluting sources including coal and natural gas rose almost a fifth over the same period, according to Bloomberg calculations based on Terna SpA data.
Italy’s new national energy
strategy, adopted last month, will require more cost-effective technologies and require the installation of an additional 40 gigawatts in renewable capacity to meet
targets, Cammisecra said.
The government of Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni will prov-
ide some 35 billion euros ($41.5 billion) of investment to help renewables cover about 28 percent of total demand by 2030.