Italy?s largest power company faces up to the ?stranded assets? problem
?IT?S not a funeral, it?s a transformation.? That is the positive spin Francesco Starace, the Tesla-driving boss of Enel, one of Europe?s biggest electricity companies, puts on a tough issue looming over the energy industry: stranded assets. He knows of what he speaks. Whereas executives at coal, oil and gas firms shudder at the thought that many of their vast reserves will be stranded if the world turns against fossil fuels, Enel is decommissioning old power plants as if its future depended on it.
Enel has announced that 23 power stations in Italy with a capacity of 13 gigawatts?enough to power a small country?are to be scrapped within five years. The first to be sold, on November 2nd, was the Giuseppe Volpi coal-fired station near Venice (pictured), which will become an industrial and logistics plant. For a lucky few the future could be more illustrious. Enel hopes some will be turned into galleries and museums, using the conversion of the Bankside power station on London?s South Bank as a model. It became the Tate Modern.
Source the The Economist !!
?IT?S not a funeral, it?s a transformation.? That is the positive spin Francesco Starace, the Tesla-driving boss of Enel, one of Europe?s biggest electricity companies, puts on a tough issue looming over the energy industry: stranded assets. He knows of what he speaks. Whereas executives at coal, oil and gas firms shudder at the thought that many of their vast reserves will be stranded if the world turns against fossil fuels, Enel is decommissioning old power plants as if its future depended on it.
Enel has announced that 23 power stations in Italy with a capacity of 13 gigawatts?enough to power a small country?are to be scrapped within five years. The first to be sold, on November 2nd, was the Giuseppe Volpi coal-fired station near Venice (pictured), which will become an industrial and logistics plant. For a lucky few the future could be more illustrious. Enel hopes some will be turned into galleries and museums, using the conversion of the Bankside power station on London?s South Bank as a model. It became the Tate Modern.
Source the The Economist !!