Italy—No 100% 2050 Commitment
Benchmark: 20% final energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020
The EU, which is responsible for national environmental policies of member countries including Italy, has not made a commitment to reach 100% renewable energy by 2050. The current EU binding target is 20% final energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020 as set by the EU’s Renewable energy directive. To achieve this, Italy set its own national renewables target at 17% which was reached in 2014.
Italy passed in 2016 two key elements of its renewable energy policy framework. The two policies are “Conto Termico 2.0” and Feed-in Premium for renewable energy sources other than photovoltaic. See below for a description of the Conto Termico policy.
The Conto Termico 2.0 policy renews, expands, and simplifies the mechanism originally introduced in 2012 which provides subsidies for renovations aimed at improving energy efficiency in existing buildings and projects that produce thermal energy from renewable and high-efficiency energy systems. Conto Termico will provide annual funding of 900 million Euros targeting government agencies, private enterprises, and households. Examples of interventions that qualify for subsidies are: improvements to the building envelope, adding building temperature automation systems (which make the management of temperature and air controls much easier and more efficient), turning existing buildings into net Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB), replacement of existing fossil fuel-based thermal systems with renewable sources such as heat pumps, installation of solar thermal and solar cooling.
The entity responsible for the scheme and management of subsidies is Gestore Servizi Energetici (GSE). This policy was adopted by the Italian Government by a Ministerial decree approved in February 2016.
Learn More
See the report “Renewable energy in Europe 2017” to learn about EU countries’ renewable energy progress https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/renewable-energy-in-europe-2017
To read more about Conto Termico 2.0 see the website of the International Energy Agency http://www.iea.org/policiesandmeasures/renewableenergy/?country=Italy as well as the GSE web page (in Italian) http://www.gse.it/it/Conto%20Termico/Conto%20Termico%202.0/Pagine/default.aspx