The Chief Executive Officer of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, Fabrizio Palermo, the Chief Executive Officer of Fincantieri, Giuseppe Bono, the Chief Executive Officer of Terna, Luigi Ferraris and the Chief Executive Officer of Eni Claudio Descalzi signed yesterday at Eni's headquarters at EUR of Rome, a non-binding agreement for the development and construction on an industrial scale of energy production plants from sea waves.
The purpose of the agreement is to combine the expertise of each company in order to transform the pilot project Inertial Sea Wave Energy Converter (ISWEC), the innovative wave production system installed by Eni in the Ravenna offshore and currently in production, in a project that can be implemented on an industrial scale and therefore of immediate application and use.
Under the terms of the agreement, Eni will make available to the joint working group the results of the ISWEC pilot plant, developed in synergy with the Turin Polytechnic and the spin-off Wave for Energy and will provide its technological, industrial know-how and commercial, as well as making the logistic and technological opportunities of its offshore plants available. The CEO Claudio Descalzi commented: "Today's agreement represents an important step towards the realization on an industrial scale of a new system of renewable energy production from wave motion. This agreement is part of our strategic decarbonisation plan and is born from Eni's strong focus on research, development and application of new technologies, aimed not only at making conventional operating processes more efficient but also encouraging us to create new business segments in the energy field. The collaboration with three Italian excellences, such as CDP, Terna and Fincantieri, will allow to put together the great existing competences and to accelerate the process of development and industrialization of this technology, with the aim of exploring together possible large-scale projects also abroad".
CDP will promote the project with the public administrations and institutions involved and, moreover, will make its economic and financial skills available, also in order to evaluate the most appropriate forms of financial support for the initiative. CEO Fabrizio Palermo commented: “CDP's Business Plan is strongly oriented towards sustainable development, in line with the major global trends and the Sustainable Development Goals defined by the UN 2030 Agenda. The project, therefore, is consistent with our strategy and, together with partners such as Eni, Fincantieri and Terna, we will be able to make a concrete contribution to the development of an innovative Italian technology and the dissemination of renewable generation sources, for the benefit of the country and collectivity ".
Fincantieri will offer its industrial and technical skills typical of naval realizations for the optimization of the executive design, construction and installation phases of the production units. The CEO Giuseppe Bono said: “We are honored to participate in a project of this magnitude with partners such as Eni, Terna and CDP. Fincantieri is constantly committed to improving the naval systems that guarantee the maximum respect for the environment and this agreement, which will lead to the industrialization of a solution to generate clean energy from the same sea force, excites us and makes us confident for the all-Italian capacity to look to the future ".
Terna will contribute to developing studies relating to the best ways of connecting and integrating the energy production system with the electricity grid, including integration with hybrid systems consisting of conventional generation, photovoltaic production plants and storage systems. "With this framework agreement - explains the CEO of Terna SpA Luigi Ferraris - Terna invests in sustainable innovation at the service of the energy transition, in the strong conviction that the distinctive skills of the group can contribute to the enabling of new renewable sources capable of making the electricity system increasingly efficient and sustainable ".
In a first phase, the agreement provides for the engineering of the construction, installation and maintenance of the ISWEC. This phase will lead to the design and construction by 2020 of a first industrial installation connected to an Eni offshore production site.
At the same time, the extension of the technology to other sites in Italy will be evaluated, in particular in the vicinity of the smaller islands, with the construction of industrial-scale plants for the supply of completely renewable electricity.
The innovative features of the ISWEC system can allow overcoming the constraints that have so far limited a widespread exploitation of wave energy conversion technologies.
Wave power generation plants can make a significant contribution not only to decarbonisation processes in the offshore environment but also and more generally to support the sustainability of electricity production systems and the diversification of renewable sources.
This agreement may be the subject of subsequent binding agreements that the parties will define in compliance with the applicable legislation including that relating to transactions between related parties.