The framework for supplying electrical power to ships berthed in Italian ports, cold ironing, has become clearer with the issuance of a decree from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport issued at the end of January (which you can find here).
The first step will be the responsibility of the General Directorate for Ports, Logistics and Intermodality of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, which, within a timeframe not established by the decree, must identify the so-called “optimal areas (clusters)”, i.e., the groups of ports of regional relevance where the supply will be the responsibility of a single entity. For each of these areas, the Directorate will identify the Port System Authority responsible for awarding the service. In the event that the cluster consists of more than one Port System Authority, the latter can regulate the organization of the service award by stipulating collaboration agreements.
After this subdivision, the Adsp of each cluster will organize a tender to grant in concession (for a period and fees not established by the decree) the plants of the cluster to a managing entity which can be a company or an Rti (Temporary Grouping of Companies) already established or to be established that demonstrates proven experience (according to the parameters of various community regulations) in the management of complex energy infrastructures, electricity distribution networks, cold ironing plants or high-power charging stations or similar or analogous charging stations.
In addition to being the holder of a service of general economic interest, the manager will be “a final customer” according to the rules governing the relationships he must maintain with the manager of the public grid or the closed distribution system to which the cold ironing infrastructure is connected. The obligation for the manager to present a financial economic plan based on tariffs that allow him to cover the costs of the service, including a reasonable profit margin tending towards the weighted average cost of the invested capital, is explicit.
This plan must not take into account the incentives provided for by Italian law (i.e., the discounts on the tariff components covering the general system charges), which must be transferred in full to the shipping company customers or users of the ships through a detailed reporting mechanism that will involve the manager, the Adsp and the Csea – Fund for Energy and Environmental Services. A package worth 570 million euros until 2033, although the decree specifies that from January 1, 2030, these incentives will no longer be available in the main Italian ports.
The decree then provides that “in the ports of origin and destination of the routes, the territorially competent Port System Authority can regulate a priority criterion for ships performing territorial continuity services with the major and minor islands, to the extent that such facilitation is necessary to guarantee the punctuality of the service”.
And that based on the data provided by the Port System Authorities, the General Directorate of the Mit will annually proceed “to compare the average price of cold ironing services on a national basis with the costs of on-board self-production of energy, assessing the need to proceed with the possible suppression of the tariff incentive referred to in Article 34-bis, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 162 of December 30, 2019, or a reduction thereof, in order to ensure the proportionality of the incentive measure with respect to the set objectives”.
