Powered at Verona ‘Smart energy expo’

Is it profitable to build wind farms offshore in the Adriatic sea for producing green energy? What are the socio- economic and environmental impacts from installation of hundreds of dozens of meters high turbines on the open sea? How much “green” energy could be produced with this system and at what cost? The european cross-border Project Powered tries to answer to these questions: it aims to analyze, from a scientific point of view, the advantage (or not) to exploit in the future the strength of the wind blowing along the Adriatic Sea, from Trieste to Puglia, from Croatian islands to Albania.
Veneto Agriculture has promoted today at the Smart Energy Expo of Verona a conference on this important topic: the event is useful to take stock of the progress of the project. It’s important to stress that the initiative doesn’t aim to build a wind farm in the Adriatic, but to understand – through the development of a scientific study – if in the future it will be profitable to carry it out. There are many expectations on the results that Powered will provide, because part of the countries bordering on the Adriatic have a huge need for clean energy, and also because there are concerns on the potential environmental impacts of a new “thing” like an offshore wind farm. There are several subjects involved in the project: Abruzzo Region (leading partner) , the Marche, Puglia and Molise Regions, the Province of Ravenna , the Ministry of Environment of Italy, the Politecnica University of Marche, the Cetma group, the Micoperi Marine Contractors Ltd, and Veneto Agriculture. For Croatia, the City of Komiza, for Montenegro the Ministry of Economy (Department of Energy), for Albania the Ministry of Economy Trade and Energy.
In recent years the wind energy realized in land in Italy has increased considerably (it is the 5 % of the total energy produced), whilst the offshore one didn’t increase much. The exploitation of offshore wind energy, on the contrary, has increased especially in the northern Europe seas, where they build 1,5 turbines per day. England and Denmark are the countries that most invest in the construction of these offshore wind farms; but also Germany, Spain and France are following the same path.
Project Powered therefore represents a strategic starting point for evaluating if the winds of Adriatic sea can be exploited to produce green energy. The project, in its complexity, also includes the installation of a series of anemometer towers to test the wind potential in each of the areas: a large amount of data will be collected and conveyed to a public network. The supply, installation, maintenance and disposal at end of cycle of the network will be managed by the Polytechnic University of Marche, scientific coordinator of the project. The final results of the study will be essential to evaluate cost-benefit and interactions between wind farms, marine environment and human activities. Veneto Agriculture has verified the ability to install one of the towers in its farm ValleVecchia in Caorle (VE) (the authorization request is pending). Veneto Agriculture will be involved in particular in the deepening of the impact of structures on marine and coastal economic activities linked to the Adriatic Sea , with special reference to fishing, and mitigation works / environmental opportunities associated with these great works.

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