If it is true that the energy transition cannot be postponed—and science has been speaking in unison on the subject for years—, for it to really take place it is inevitable to make some compromises. It is not just the question of the effects on the weaker sectors of the population, which environmentalists also address too little. The questions that must be resolved, now that we move from theory to practice, are varied. The debate over offshore wind energy (i.e. energy from the wind blowing over the sea) offers an example.
Offshore wind energy offers a great advantage, says Ksenia Balanda, general director of the partnership between the Italian renewable energy giant, Nadara, and the Spanish BlueFloat Energy.“In the middle of the sea, the wind is constant. There are no mountains, buildings or impediments of any kind: it means that renewable energies, intermittent and unpredictable by definition, become much more predictable.” In this way, it is possible plan cash flows with some precision by estimating future prices: These forecasts are subject to large margins of variability, but better that than nothing.
The confrontation between ministries
In Italy, the confrontation between the Ministries of Culture and the Environment is not new. On the one hand there are the demands – understandable – of those who seek to protect the territory and the landscape from speculation. On the other hand, the urgent need to decarbonize electricity production, maintaining the pace in this decisive decade. Finding a solution that brings everyone together is no easy task. You can start by clearing the field of minor issues.
For example, wind turbines. If on land it is inevitable to take into account landscape limitations, in the case of offshore wind turbines, the logic of the protest seems much less understandable. Landscapers and the affected administrations complain that these enormous steel stems spoil the view. “But the distance from the coast is such that, looking at the horizon, the eye perceives them as a mere point. We are talking about four millimeters,” says Balanda. Nadara is a company created in 2024 through the merger of Renantis (formerly Falck Renewables) with the British Ventent Energy and is part of the Infrastructure Investment Fund of the investment bank JP Morgan. A colossus among the main players in the sector in Europe, with an already installed capacity of more than 4 GW and five plants in the authorization process in Apulia, Calabria and Sicily.
Precisely in Apulia, explains Balanda, the approval of the environmental impact assessment is scheduled for the first half of 2025: one hundred and seventy wind turbines up to three hundred meters high are in play, placed in the open sea eighteen kilometers from the mainland, he points out. . These are floating constructions, but anchored to land. An investment of eight billion euros, “without public funds,” emphasizes Balanda, in statements to WIRED. The money will come from private investors. “We will finance ourselves through banks and creating consortia. Are we sure that the green light will come? Yes, we have done exhaustive studies on this. Banks, after all, try to avoid risk as much as possible, and the fact that those we have spoken to show that they believe in the project is a good indication.
From the environmental point of view
The blades “can be disassembled at the end of service to recover more than 90% of the material,” says Balanda. “And around the structures there is often an effect similar to that of a coral reef: there are many life forms that take advantage of the protection they offer to thrive.” Regarding trawling, with the plant that will make it difficult for boats to practice, thus interrupting an economic activity that provides work for dozens of families, the manager maintains that this technique is a problem. “Even the European Commission has pointed out that it ruins the seabed,” he says. In Sardinia, in some areas of the Sinis, marble blocks have been placed on the seabed to break the nets of those who fish where it is not allowed. What will happen to those who coexist with this activity? “It is necessary to retrain these workers. In addition, there are other types of fishing apart from trawling, and all of them are compatible with the presence of wind farms at sea,” responds the manager.
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Because, Balanda adds, “building wind turbines to be transported in the middle of the sea also brings important benefits to the economy of the territories involved. We are talking about thousands and thousands of tons of steel that must be produced, with a supply chain that must necessarily be located as close as possible to the point where they are going to be deployed, also because the components cannot be easily transported by land, given their size. The ports involved will have to be improved: in Apulia, he explains, Brindisi and Taranto have already been proposed. “An average of 2,500 people are involved in the construction phase, which can reach 4,000 in the peak phases. The construction and testing of the work lasts five years: then, for thirty or forty years, the plant will employ about three hundred people.
Offshore wind industry figures
A study by the European House Ambrosetti published last February proposes some more figures. “Offshore wind energy will be an important part of the Italian renewable energy mix by 2050, with at least twenty gigawatts installed, equivalent to 10% of the electricity generated in the country,” declared Valerio De Molli, Director General of the think tank during a conference organized in Rome. In this sense, “Italy has metallurgical and engineering leadership that can be exploited,” the manager continued.
The risk, according to De Molli, is to fall behind those who have already been working in the sector for some time, and thus lose production opportunities. Northern European countries are already coordinating to achieve synergies. This is the case of the Esbjerg declaration of May 2022, in which Germany, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands have committed to expanding offshore wind capacity in the North Sea from 4 to 65 gigawatts in 2030, to reach 150 gigawatts in 2050. In this way, they explain, they would contribute to more than half of the offshore wind energy target set by the European Commission. But there is also the European declaration of offshore wind ports (from January 2023), with which the ports of Cuxhaven, Eemshaven, Esbjerg, Humber, Nantes-Saint Nazaire and Ostend have joined forces to meet the objectives set by European politicians , starting the work of adapting its scales to the installation of offshore wind farms.
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Business ebb
The Italian Government, Balanda summarizes, has recently given an important signal to the markets by publishing the Fer 2 decree, which supports the construction of biogas, floating photovoltaic and offshore wind plants. But the green sector is going through an ebb phase: many companies are questioning their sustainability commitments.
Leading the way are the big oil companies (responsible for 15% of the emissions of the entire energy sector, along with the gas industry), with several big fish, from Shell to Eni, having revised downwards their previously announced targets.
It seems that is not the case with finance, at least not entirely. A little history. In the first months of 2020, Larry Fink, co-founder and head of the American Blackrock, the largest asset manager in the world, surprised everyone with his annual letter to investors: it is a document expected by the entire financial world by the mass of capital that the strategic decisions taken are capable of directing. “Climate change is different from other financial challenges,” the manager had written then, promising a “redefinition of finance from the bottom up” that would place “sustainability at the center of our investment approach.”
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