The Russia-Ukraine war has had quite a massive impact on the worldwide energy market. The over-dependence on the Russian fossil fuels of the European nations has posed quite a phenomenal challenge when it comes to supply security.
It is worth noting that Italy, as one of the largest natural gas importers, went on to source 40% of its gas from Russia until 2021, but in 2022, it reduced its dependence on Russian imports to 19% of its overall natural gas imports.
Up against this backdrop, the country is anticipated to achieve a total installed capacity of 162 GW from renewable sources of energy by 2035, with the renewable share rising to 69% in the power capacity mix, as per a leading data and analytics company, GlobalData.
The updated report from GlobalData suggests that all the parameters, be it trends, market size, regulations, forecast, and competitive landscape for 2024-2035 reveal that the country is anticipated to have a renewable capacity of 107.7 GW by the decade-end with the share when it comes to renewables in overall yearly generation touching almost 59% by 2030.
The power analyst at GlobalData, Sudeshna Sarmah, remarks that the severe drought in 2022 went on to majorly affect Italy’s power market since hydropower generation went on to dip from 31.2 TWh to 13.7 TWh in 2022.
In the absence of a nuclear power source, Italy went on to increase its thermal power generation by almost 8.5% in 2022. Moreover, the electricity imports went on to touch a total of 47.4 TWh.
It was in 2022, the government in Italy went on to introduce the National Plan for Containment of Natural Gas, which aimed at reducing the nation’s consumption of natural gas. As part of a supplementary measure, Italy has started to import natural gas from countries such as Azerbaijan, Algeria, and Libya.
While all this does offer makeshift relief, the country must surely focus on elevating its renewable energy capacity so as to attain self-sufficiency.
It is worth noting that in 2023, Italy went ahead and revised its renewable energy objective, therefore setting a new aim of attaining 65% by the end of the decade.
Sarmah adds that the upgrade of the renewable targets has to come up with strong measures as well as a clear roadmap with definite objectives in order to achieve them as well as overcome the dependence on natural gas as well as imports of electricity.
She concludes that the country is indeed committed to eradicating coal-powered plants by 2025. The government is looking forward to making the national grid more robust and also prioritizing the fast creation of renewable sources of energy. Moreover, Italy is anticipated to make a revision to its National Energy and Climate Plan- NECP. The present target that’s mentioned in the NECP happens to reach 93.2 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030, with solar PV systems anticipated to contribute 50 GW and wind power all set to offer 19.3 GW.