ROME (ITALPRESS) – More than 23 billion euros in investments over the next 10 years, up 10 percent from the previous Plan. Terna presented the 2025-2034 Development Plan, which consolidates the role of the company led by Giuseppina Di Foggia in serving the country for a sustainable and decarbonized future.
The Plan is consistent with the targets defined in the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan 2024, declined in the Terna-Snam Scenarios Description Document 2024, which calls for an increase in installed solar and wind capacity of more than 65 GW to 2030 and 94 GW to 2035, both compared to the installed capacity as of 2023.
The 2025 Development Plan was presented today in Rome in the presence of Terna’s Chairman, Igor De Biasio, the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, and the Chairman of ARERA, the Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and Environment, Stefano Besseghini.
‘The Development Plan presented today responds to the urgent needs that the current context imposes,’ said Terna’s CEO and General Manager, Giuseppina Di Foggia. ‘Investing in the planning, modernization and digitalization of electricity grids is in fact essential to meet the growing demand for energy and the integration of renewable sources. With 23 billion euros over the next 10 years, we aim to ensure a reliable, resilient and sustainable system for the country. An adequate and interconnected transmission grid, together with current legislative measures and incentive tools, is the enabling factor to reach the targets set in the National Energy and Climate Plan to 2030. The start of the construction phase of our main electricity infrastructures, such as the Tyrrhenian Link, the Adriatic Link and the connection between Sardinia, Corsica and Tuscany, confirms Terna’s commitment to managing the country’s energy transition,” Di Foggia added. “Requests for the connection of renewable plants, storage systems and, increasingly in recent months, Data Centers, are constantly increasing. To address the risk of virtual saturation of the grid and to help maintain the country’s attractiveness for investors, including international ones, we have adopted – following the approval of the so-called Energy Security Decree-Law – a new process of territorial planning of our infrastructures. This process ensures efficiency in the implementation of the works enabling the connection of new resources, allowing to reduce administrative congestion, and to minimize costs for the system.”
Terna’s interventions present in the 2025 Development Plan will allow a significant increase in power exchange capacity between market zones, reaching about 39 GW compared to the current 16 GW, an increase of 22 percent compared to the previous Plan. In addition, the Plan aims to increase transmission capacity with foreign countries by about 40 percent compared to current values, considering all the works included in the Plan even beyond the 10-year horizon, thanks to future electricity interconnection projects that will increase the reliability and security of the grid.
By 2030, thanks to the interventions included in the Plan, an overall reduction in CO2 emissions of up to about 2,000 kt/year is expected, and up to 12,100 kt/year by 2040; the latter represents a 2.5 percent improvement over the previous Development Plan.
In the Plan, Terna has prioritized interventions that offer the greatest value for the system, identifying “capital light” solutions in order to reduce costs and maximize the effectiveness of the investments needed for the energy transition.
The interventions under the Plan, which will enable operation with a long-term vision in view of the needs of the grid, address the following needs: develop enabling and innovative infrastructure, functional to achieve the efficient target capacity, to increase transit limits between market sections and maximize energy exchange; resolve local congestion, ensuring safe operation within market zones, through planning intra-zonal interventions; respond efficiently to all requests for grid connection through the definition of a new model, Efficient Territorial Planning; ensure the stability and security of the electricity grid and the integration of markets through foreign interconnections, which allow flexible and balanced management of energy resources, facilitating exchanges between national grids.
The network architecture illustrates the main interventions to meet development needs with a time schedule spread over several years.
In the time horizon of the 2025 Development Plan, the majority of the interventions planned to be in operation by 2030 have obtained authorization or are already in the authorization process. These include the company’s major infrastructure works.
Tyrrhenian Link: the 500 kV submarine HVDC link that will unite Sicily with Campania and Sardinia; Adriatic Link: the 1,000 MW HVDC link between Abruzzo and Marche along about 250 km, 210 km of which will be submarine; Bolano-Annunziata: authorized in September 2024, the 380 kV submarine AC power line that will unite Sicily and Calabria and increase up to 2.000 MW the interconnection capacity between Sicily and the Continent, benefiting the development and integration of renewable sources expected in Southern Italy; Colunga-Calenzano: 380 kV power line that runs 84 km between the provinces of Bologna and Florence.
Additional infrastructure reinforcements are then planned by 2034 including: Milan-Montalto: a DC power line with a maximum voltage of 525 kV and a capacity of 2.100 MW that will connect Latium and Lombardy, passing through Tuscany, Liguria and Emilia-Romagna, thanks to a total route of about 500 km, including one marine and one overhead section; Central Link: involves the reconstruction, on the same route, of the 220 kV power lines between Umbria and Tuscany and will connect the power stations of Villavalle (Terni) and Santa Barbara (Arezzo); Dorsale Adriatica: DC link between Foggia and Forlì that will ensure the strengthening of the Adriatic corridor, allowing a substantial increase in exchange capacity; Montecorvino-Benevento: project to build a new 380 kV link between the areas of Montecorvino and Benevento that will provide a passage for the 380 kV Electric Station “Avellino N.” and the upgrade of the 380 kV stations in Montecorvino and Benevento, functional for the construction and operation of the new power line.
Terna also plans to build major infrastructure aimed at increasing the grid’s security level and intra-zonal capacity. These are interventions that promote the exchange of energy within the same market area, functional for the integration of renewable sources and the resolution of grid congestion at the local level. The planned works include three 380 kV links in Sicily (Chiaramonte Gulfi-Ciminna, Caracoli-Ciminna and Paternò-Priolo) and one in Lombardy (Milan-Brescia).
Terna’s Development Plan 2025 aims to extract more value from existing assets through capital-light interventions, which are based on innovative tools and solutions and complement traditional infrastructure interventions, allowing it to pursue significant benefits for the grid.
Due to its strategic geographic location at the center of the Mediterranean, Italy represents an energy bridge between Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The 2025 Development Plan, therefore, confirms interconnection interventions with foreign countries in order to ensure security, sustainability and efficiency through the possibility of mutual relief between interconnected systems. In addition, these infrastructures provide a key flexibility tool for sharing generation resources and storage capacity in the face of variability in renewable generation.
Major planned projects include: Sa.Co.I.3: a project to modernize and upgrade the existing interconnection between Sardinia, Corsica and Tuscany; ELMED: financed with more than 300 million euros from the EU Connecting Europe Facility program, the interconnection project between Italy and Tunisia is one of the interventions included in the Mattei Plan for Africa; doubling the Italy-Greece interconnection: in January 2024, the public consultation for the new link was launched, which will consist of two 250-km submarine cables with power up to 1.000 MW and two 50-km DC land cables that will connect the Melendugno landfall in Puglia to the Greek coast. In addition, there are additional interconnection projects, known as “Merchant Lines,” in the 2025 Development Plan by other developers and/or non-transportation concession holders.
The Development Plan 2025 is also digital on Terna’s App, thanks to a dedicated section with a revamped design. Through multimedia content, from mobile it will be possible to consult grid development projects and interventions in support of the energy and digital transition. The application allows users to explore the main aspects of the Plan within certain thematic areas: “Context and Guidelines,” “Efficient Territorial Planning,” and “System Benefits.” Key works are represented in the area dedicated to development interventions with interactive maps, from which one can access focus on works in the two time horizons ‘2025-2034’ and ‘post 2034’. Among the new features of this edition is the possibility to consult directly in the app also the Files and Annexes of the 2025 Development Plan.
– Terna press office photo –
(ITALPRESS).
