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29 September 2003 - The chief executive of Italy's dominant power generator Enel, Paulo Scaroni, has warned that the country's power supply is vulnerable as a result of reliance on imports. His comments came the day after virtually the whole of Italy experienced a loss of electric power on Sunday.
"Italy is particularly fragile because of imports, and the only solution is more generators," said Scaroni. "That's difficult because of the 'nimby' factor."
The chairman of the Italian national grid blamed the simultaneous failure of two key power lines from France for electricity outages that plunged the country into darkness. "At 3.20 a.m. the two lines triggered the loss of power... across the northern Italian borders. In essence, all foreign supply was lost in minutes," said Andrea Bollino, chairman of the Italian national grid, GRTN.
The failures were blamed on a fluke of nature caused by storms over the Alps but the slow recovery of power particularly in the south of the country pointed to underlying weaknesses in the system.
Italy is reliant on a constant supply of imported power. Italy's imports grew to 48 400 GWh in 2001 from less than 1000 in 1973 - virtually all from France and Switzerland.
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