“A year of great progress and consolidation for EF Solare closes, providing the incentive for new and even more challenging goals to be the main character of the ongoing energy transition. As every year, the Group will continue to operate with the aim of increasing the production and use of renewable energy, working together with communities, institutions and authorities to generate common value and bring the country closer to the ambitious decarbonization goals” – commented Andrea Ghiselli, CEO of EF Solare.
EF SOLARE’S ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE YEAR FOR THE FUTURE OF PHOTOVOLTAICS
2021 has been a year full of news and important achievements for EF Solare and for the entire renewable energy sector, considering the importance of accelerating the energy transition process. That’s why we decided to review all the milestones and main results achieved by the Group.
First of all, 2021 is the year in which we exceed the gigawatt installed capacity threshold. The activation of the new photovoltaic park of “El Bonal” in Spain represents a milestone for EF Solare and shows its contribution to the Italian and European decarbonisation process. In fact, with over 79 MW of installed capacity, the new plant in El Bonal will contribute to producing 124 GWh of additional green energy each year, in addition to the over 1.3 TWh of production of the Group.
Another element that has engaged all of us and profoundly shaped 2021 is the program of valorization of our photovoltaic assets. We have all worked on several fronts. On one side the aim has been to improve the intrinsic performance of the assets in the portfolio and on the other to optimize their management. The revamping and repowering program has been the cornerstone of the improvement in asset performance and will be completed by the end of January of over 45 MW of work on the modules and over 100 MW of work on the inverters. These results were achieved in an extremely complex context, both in terms of supply markets and authorization processes. These interventions were accompanied by projects designed to improve the management capacity of our plants. We have equipped ourselves with a single integrated monitoring system and developed a new security model. The first, which required upgrades on 467 MW of plants equal to about 55% of the MW installed, lays the foundations for making timely decisions on the state of operation of our plants and their performance by allowing a more data-driven approach to maintenance activities. The new security model, also through a clearer attribution of responsibilities between supplier and customer, has the purpose of preventing problems and material damage to the plants that can create interruptions in their operation. In 2021, with over 547 MW analyzed, the commitment to the use of innovative systems to analyze the status of photovoltaic plants continued, such as the multi-year project of thermographic analysis through drones, used not only as a corrective diagnostic tool to identify the need for extraordinary maintenance, revamping and repowering activities, but also as a useful tool to support ordinary maintenance activities. The last chapter, only in terms of time, of this year full of initiatives was the organizational evolution that involved the operations area with the establishment of an engineering function and a maintenance function and the integration of the asset management activity.
Significant financial transactions were also concluded in 2021 with the aim of supporting the development plan for existing and new assets in the period 2021-2024. In particular, additional lines of credit were negotiated and activated in order to finance most of the revamping and/or repowering interventions of the Italian plants. In addition, a new loan was provided to the holding company EF Solare Italia in order to support the development and construction of new merchant plants both in Italy and Spain.
Starting from the conviction of finding a non-divisive way to make decarbonization compatible with land use, we reflected on how to innovatively integrate photovoltaics with agriculture. The push towards innovation, the collaboration with our industrial partners and the experience gained in the management of our photovoltaic greenhouses has led to develop the prototype of an innovative model of agro-photovoltaic with zero land consumption, able to meet the needs of open field crops, while maintaining the main benefits of agro-photovoltaics found under the greenhouses. On the occasion of the annual conference, dedicated to agro-photovoltaic, EF Solare presented in Scalea the demonstrative prototype of the new model. The presentation of the prototype was also an opportunity to discuss with leading representatives of political and industry institutions such as GSE, RSE and ENEA the important potential of agro-photovoltaics for our country.
2021 was also the year of obtaining two of the most important international company certifications, namely the certification for the management of environmental impacts, ISO 14001, and the certification for the management of health and safety of workers, ISO 45001. Certification processes generate value for the entire organization and provide opportunities to work on business management and business processes by looking at them from a different perspective.
To conclude, EF Solare’s daily commitment to sustainability is not only evidenced by our business, but also by the way we work every day to achieve our goals. For this reason, an important achievement was the editing of the Sustainability Report (Report 2020), a document that collects all the ESG initiatives and results obtained by the Group, consolidating a voluntary path that began last year with the publication of a Corporate Sustainability Policy.
“A year of great progress and consolidation for EF Solare closes, providing the incentive for new and even more challenging goals to be the main character of the ongoing energy transition. As every year, the Group will continue to operate with the aim of increasing the production and use of renewable energy, working together with communities, institutions and authorities to generate common value and bring the country closer to the ambitious decarbonization goals” – commented Andrea Ghiselli, CEO of EF Solare.