"It is not clear why Italy should follow a different path of liberalisation than other countries. It is necessary to defend hydropower from foreign competition,' so Aurelio Regina, Confindustria President's Delegate for Energy, in an interview with Il Messaggero reiterates the appeal to the government on hydropower to protect the safety and competitiveness of the sector.

The risks are many for Italy, 'an operator can decide who to give energy to. And a foreigner,' Regina emphasised, 'would feel fewer constraints towards a market' other than his own and could potentially exploit this strategic asset to the detriment of energy security, for example, with off-market pricing policies. This is even more true if the international player comes from a country where there is no reciprocity towards Italian companies.

It is necessary to act, therefore, because the energy market has changed; the process of decarbonisation in production and consumption has accelerated, in a scenario of geopolitical turbulence, while our suppliers have diversified and transport costs have increased; energy prices make us less and less competitive, since, compared to the Italian average, in Germany we save 40%, in Spain 70, in France 87. These countries then exploited their 'natural' sources and 'the differences in price lower the competitiveness of our industrial districts,' stressed the Energy Delegate, 'compared to direct competitors. Companies, then, need certainty to plan investments'.

In this scenario, Regina emphasised the importance of hydropower, because it is one of the major sources of wealth for our country, with its significant contribution in terms of energy security, sustainability, and water saving, as well as being an embankment for hydrogeological resilience. Moreover, the benefits in terms of energy saved amount to 1.4 TWh per year and the indirect economic impact for the country is 52 billion euros. According to Aurelio Regina, for companies this means 'cheap and clean energy that does not impact the Ets trading system and possible penalties. It is necessary to allocate quotas of hydropower production to companies by providing a percentage reserve at prices that support the competitiveness of the production sector. In the meantime, we have proposed to contract energy quantities at lower prices with long-term PPA contracts. The government has already responded in this direction with the Energy Release. But we must work towards an energy market that aims to decouple the valuation of long-term negotiated energy from that of the spot market, otherwise tariffs will fall more slowly'.