Green light for green energy

Silvano Arru is 57 years old and for 12 years has been the mayor of Borutta, one of the many villages in Sardinia at risk of depopulation. He has chosen to return to live there with one task: to project the village of his parents into the future.

“Most of our land is destined to depopulate”, he told Today.it, “so we tried to create something that could curb this trend”. The idea is to make Borutta a ‘green’ village. But the story of the small village is also a symbol of the delay Italy is experiencing in the transition to clean energy.

The first idea was to build a wind turbine: “We wanted to produce green energy to sell to (electricity company) Enel and use the proceeds to make residents’ bills zero, but the authorisations took so long that the incentive was lowered and it was no longer viable”, the mayor explained. They are now focused on photovoltaics andBorutta has installed panels to provide energy self-sufficiency for all public facilities through a smart grid with intelligent sensors that optimise energy distribution and now, the municipality’s bill is practically zero.

They would like to extend these benefits to residents: the creation of a real energy community, a project that is unfortunately going slowly, grinding its way through the labyrinth of Italian bureaucracy.

And the Sardinian town is not the only one waiting. The creation of more extensive energy communities got the green light from Brussels at the end of 2023. But to date, there is still no decree from the Italian Government so many projects, like the one in Borutta, are on hold.