Zaia – Veneto ready for the great challenge of energy transition –

Fonte: ufficio stampa Giunta Regionale del Veneto

(AVN) – Venice, September 12, 2024. With the resolution approved and forwarded to the Regional Council, a two-year effort to map out Veneto’s energy policies between now and 2030 comes to a conclusion. It is an ambitious and challenging work to aim for an energy transition that can no longer be postponed, but is sustainable, participatory and in the sign of energy autonomy. It is a plan that moves about 8 billion investments to 2030 that is expected to have an economic impact of 19.7 billion euros, going to involve more than 107,000 employees.

This was stated by the President of the Veneto Region Luca Zaia, who announced the green light for the new regional energy plan that has returned to the council after a public consultation period that saw 95 comments received, almost half of them about environment. Every point of view and suggestion was carefully evaluated and considered by the offices, and most of the comments received were accepted.

It is an energy plan shared with the territory, which has been involved through the public consultation process as part of the Strategic Environmental Assessment procedure – points out Regional Councillor for Economic Development and Energy Roberto Marcato – the protagonists are citizens, associations, businesses, professional associations and those with environmental expertise.

In summary, the objectives of the plan are:

• Increase in electricity produced by RES equal to +5.7 TWh/year to 2030 (compared to 2019), equivalent to the consumption of all households in Veneto in 2021;
• Reduction in Veneto’s energy dependence from the current 50% of imported energy to about 34% by 2030;
• Reduction in energy consumption to 2030 of 1.13 Mtoe, equivalent to 10% of the consumption of the entire Veneto system in 2019 and double the consumption of all Veneto households in 2021;
• Reduction in CO2 emissions of about 15 million tons (14,797,500) equivalent to 148 million new trees planted;
• Reduction of CO2 emissions in the transport, civil, agriculture, waste and small industry sectors of about 3.5 million tons, equivalent to a forest as large as the province of Belluno;
• 43% of the total electricity available for our needs will thus be produced from renewable sources. These are ambitious and challenging targets: for the target of new installed power from renewable sources of + 6 GW, it should be considered that by 2022 we had installed in Veneto 4 GW of electric renewables of which 2.5 GW of photovoltaics.

At the end of the public consultation phase, in early August the Regional Commission for Strategic Environmental Assessment issued a favorable opinion on the Plan with some prescriptions punctually implemented in the documents approved by the regional council.

The New Regional Energy Plan, adopted last April, has been updated to the most recent sectoral planning both on a national and regional scale and also in line with the legislation that has been approved in the meantime and mainly referred to the issue of areas suitable for the installation of energy production plants from renewable sources, involves a total investment now estimated at about 8 billion euros, an economic impact that exceeds 19.7 billion euros that will involve more than 107,000 employees.

The word now passes to the Regional Council for the final go-ahead – Marcato concludes -. We are delivering a work that has involved 4 Regional Organizational Areas, 14 Directorates, ARPAV, the Strategic Technical Committee at Veneto Sviluppo assisted by the LEVI CASES Study Center, RSE of the GSE group and ENEA and that will ferry our Region towards a new energy, ever closer, ever cleaner.