An area of great environmental, historical and landscape value risks being transformed into a photovoltaic plant. This is the alarm raised by the Gruppo d'Intervento Giuridico (GrIG), an environmental association that on July 2 presented a formal request for revision and partial cancellation in self-protection of the tender published by Difesa Servizi SpA, an in-house company of the Ministry of Defense.
The tender, called “Energy 5.0.”, provides for the multi-year concession of various military state-owned sites for the installation of energy production plants from renewable sources. Among the areas indicated, the external areas of the Navy complex in Borgata Sant'Elia – Colle di Sant'Ignazio, in the municipal territory of Cagliari, stand out.
According to the GrIG, this is a seriously inappropriate initiative : 37 hectares of land would be used for the construction of a photovoltaic system, right on a hillside that hosts significant historical and cultural testimonies and which, by law, would be considered unsuitable for such installations.
The area, in fact, is subject to landscape restrictions (pursuant to Legislative Decree 42/2004) and partly also to hydrogeological restrictions (RD 3267/1923). There are protected cultural assets there, such as the 18th century Forte di Sant'Ignazio, the 16th century Torre del Prezzemolo and the Torre dei Segnali, and the 20th century C-135 anti-aircraft battery. Elements that, according to the association, would require "safeguarding and careful valorization", certainly not transformation into an industrial zone for energy production.
Not only that. The national law (DL 50/2022, converted with amendments into L. 91/2022) expressly prohibits the installation of photovoltaic systems within five hundred meters of areas protected for environmental or cultural reasons. A position also reaffirmed by recent rulings of the TAR Sardinia and Umbria, as well as by the Sardinian regional legislation (LR 20/2024).
"While on the one hand the choice of the Defense to install solar panels on the roofs of the barracks on Viale Poetto must be appreciated," declared the GrIG, "the idea of allocating the Colle di Sant'Ignazio to a photovoltaic plant is a step backwards that risks definitively compromising a place of the highest value."
The association also targets the lack of real energy planning that takes territorial sustainability into account: "What is the point of an energy policy that does not evaluate the impacts on the territory and the landscape?", they ask.
The tender will expire on October 15th, but the front against its implementation in the Cagliari site is ready to fight.
(Unioneonline/Fr.Me.)
