The future of Italy hinges on its electricity transmission grid

The evolution of the national electricity grid envisaged by Terna's 2025-2034 Development Plan continues with renewed impetus. The objective is a grid capable of supporting the increase in connection requests while guaranteeing the system’s efficiency, safety and resilience, accelerating the energy transition, and increasing transport capacity and the country’s interconnections with Europe and the Mediterranean countries.

The plan is already a reality and was presented in Rome by the national transmission grid operator’s CEO and General Manager Giuseppina Di Foggia in the presence of the Minister for the Environment and Energy Security Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, the Italian Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and Environment’s (Arera) Chairman Stefano Besseghini and Terna’s Chairman Igor De Biasio.

Terna's CEO and GM Giuseppina Di Foggia explained that the Development Plan meets the «urgent needs imposed by the current context. Investing in planning, modernisation and digitisation of the electricity grid is essential to deal with the increasing demand for electricity and the integration of renewable sources. With €23 billion envisaged over the next ten years, we aim to guarantee a national system that is reliable, resilient and sustainable».

The overall investment envisaged over the ten years exceeds that of the previous plan by 10%: these are resources destined to the development of the grid infrastructure and to the achievement of the national energy transition targets set out by the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC), also through considerable modernisation works. The 2025-2034 Development Plan is consistent with both the PNIEC and the other updated Terna-Snam scenarios published in the Scenario Description Document 2024 (DDS24).

It is therefore an essential plan, as it focuses on infrastructure that is of strategic importance for the country and its development, as confirmed by the Minister for the Environment and Energy Security Gilberto Pichetto Fratin: «The €23 billion investment announced by Terna is important because we are talking about constituting the backbone of national electricity and, if we do not have the backbone of the grid, we cannot meet the demand of businesses and citizens».

The Development Plan identifies the most urgent works to begin with and uses them as a base to develop a series of capillary and highly-innovative actions. The 2025DP is in fact divided into 6 main dossiers (Overview, Planning of the electricity grid, Status of the electricity system and energy scenarios, Efficient territorial planning and connection works, Development needs, New projects, System benefits and grid robustness evaluation) and 3 technical annexes (Progress of previous North-West - North-East - Centre-South development plan, 2023-2024 Regulatory references, Document on the methodology for the application of the cost-benefit analysis to the 2025 Development Plan) which, all together, help define all the actions to be taken until 2034.

«It is an extraordinary Plan, the most important ever implemented in the history of Terna and a Plan that improves the country, because we manage to be enablers of the energy transition and decarbonisation. The investments made will improve the grid’s safety, resilience and effectiveness, which is a competitive element to attract investment», commented Terna's Chairman Igor De Biasio.

Meeting the increasing electricity demand. The electricity demand is growing. In Italy and all over the world. It is growing due to energy transition and for the electrification of consumption, it is growing due to the need to support development and due to the effect of new global trends. Artificial Intelligence, for example, requires increasingly sophisticated and energy-intensive data centres. In 2024 alone, the demand for electricity by data centres reached 30 GW, i.e. 24 times more than in 2021.

Terna's Development Plan takes the new context and growth in demand into consideration and replies with projects and figures: the works envisaged will guarantee an increase in the electricity exchange capacity between market zones, reaching approximately 39 GW compared with the current 16 GW, i.e. a 22% increase on the previous Plan. The transfer capacity abroad will also increase by 40%, while constant attention will be paid as always to sustainability. CO₂ emissions will drop to approximately 2,000 kt/year by 2030 and up to 12,000 kt/year by 2040, thus leading to a 2.5% improvement compared to the previous plan.

Efficient territorial planning. Over the past few years, the number of requests for connection to the national electricity grid has grown at a steady pace, thereby imposing the need for efficient planning, a capillary planning of interventions, constant modernisation as well as scrupulous authorisation processes for new entries.

Precisely to guarantee the maximum efficiency in the implementation of works that enable the connection and integration of new resources, Terna has developed a new model called Efficient Territorial Planning, to which a dossier of the Plan is dedicated. The objective of the ETP is to make the market increasingly transparent by swiftly managing authorisation processes while at the same time promoting planning of the new infrastructure needed that is increasingly rational and sustainable.

An essential step especially for high growth sectors such as that of renewable systems. Arera Chairman Stefano Besseghini intervened on the matter during the presentation of the Development Plan, highlighting how «we will have to figure out the credibility of 350 GW worth of connection requests to the grid for renewable systems. Keeping Terna constantly linked with these authorisation processes is the best way for the system to consistently evolve its planning capacity».

The big development grids. Electricity travels via infrastructure. Increasingly modern and capillary grid infrastructures. Intervening on such an asset by setting up large electricity transport grids is one of the pillars of the Development Plan. Most of the works envisaged by 2030 have already been or are currently being authorised. The Plan includes the big electricity transport "backbones" such as the Tyrrhenian Link, the submarine connection that will connect Sicily, Campania and Sardinia, the Adriatic Link between Abruzzo and Marche; the Bolano-Annunziata, i.e. the submarine power line between Sicily and Calabria; and the Colunga-Calenzano between Bologna and Florence.

Besides these works envisaged by 2030, there are those that will be concluded by 2034: the Milan-Montalto that will connect Lazio and Lombardy passing through Tuscany, Liguria and Emilia-Romagna; the Central Link between Umbria and Tuscany; and the Adriatic Backbone between Foggia and Forlì and Montecorvino-Benevento.

In addition to expanding the capillarity of the grid, the new infrastructure will contribute to making it safer and more efficient, thereby providing an essential contribution to ensuring an answer to the increasing demand for electricity.

Italy, an electricity hub that joins Northern and Southern Europe. Terna's Development Plan allows ample space for the development of cross-border interconnections which have the objective of guaranteeing safety, sustainability and efficiency through the principle of mutual assistance between countries. Therefore, in addition to the already-active grids, the Plan envisages the development and modernisation of other strategic infrastructures.

This is the case of the expansion of the interconnection between Sardinia, Corsica and Toscana SA.CO.I. 3; the ELMED project for the interconnection between Italy and Tunisia (part of the works envisioned by the Mattei Plan that will be implemented alongside Tunisian operator STEG); or the doubling of the interconnection between Italy and Greece.

Illustrating the Development Plan: an app for citizens, businesses and institutions. The plan can be accessed on the specific section of the Terna app with a renewed design that enables browsing via five large introductory chapters, subject areas and multimedia content: "Context and guidelines", "Benefits for the system", "Efficient territorial planning", "Development projects", "Plan documents".

By tapping on the new area dedicated to documents, it is possible to access all editorial content, from the dossiers to the technical annexes. The two interactive maps in the “Development projects” section show the grid’s main projects and development activities in the 2025-2034 and post-2034 time periods. In addition, as of this year, the Terna app section dedicated to the 2025 DP includes reels, stories and in-depth analysis sheets with images and infographics illustrating the distinctive elements of the Plan in a clear, direct and concise manner. Transparency and sharing are key principles that form part of a modern and integrated communication model, where even an app becomes a tool of collective storytelling which, alongside social media and traditional channels, helps illustrate Terna’s commitment for a sustainable and decarbonised future.