INTEGRATING RENEWABLE ENERGY IN RAGUSA, ITALY
Overview
Ragusa is a Municipality in southern Italy; it is the capital of the province of Ragusa, on the island of Sicily, with 73,288 inhabitants in 2016. It is built on a wide limestone hill between two deep valleys, Cava San Leonardo and Cava Santa Domenica. The city is strongly dependent on electricity imports, as the possibilities for local energy production are limited. Indeed, only a few distributed PV and wind units are installed in the city with a yearly production of 79.4 GWh/y and 18.46 GWh/y, respectively. Ragusa is also a popular tourist location, especially during summer. This results in intensive seasonal loads.The local energy system was modelled with hourly operation scenarios, considering three scenarios of development until year 2030. Scenario 1 serves as the baseline, considering the total electricity consumption of the Ragusa region as provided by the municipality, without any new installations or investments. Scenario 2 explores the partial electrification of the heating and transport sectors, covering 50% of total consumption through the deployment of heat pumps (HPs) and electric vehicles (EVs), alongside investments in photovoltaics (PV), wind turbines (WT), and battery energy storage (BES) to achieve a 50% renewable energy share. Scenario 3 extends this approach to full electrification, covering 100% of the heating and transport sectors with HPs and EVs, and incorporating PV, WT, and BES to reach a 100% renewable energy share. In both scenarios 2 and 3, EVs are restricted to smart charging, with no Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) integration, and further considerations will be based on projections for the year 2030.
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b)
Figure 1 Monthly representation of technologies contributing to the power supply in a) Scenario 2 and b) Scenario 3
Socio-economic feasibility analysis
The deployment of PV and WT systems in Ragusa municipality will generate new employment opportunities in system management, installation, maintenance, and administrative roles. Notably, operation and maintenance jobs remain stable over a 25-year period, while engineering and installation roles re-emerge during repowering phases and align with the evolving energy transition. By 2030, the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs reflects the dynamics of renewable energy expansion, with Scenario 3 creating approximately 390 full-time positions.
Macro objective:
- Demonstrate the feasible integrated energy system for an insular community, based 100 % on locally available renewable energy sources
Specific objectives:
- Use locally available renewable energy
- Decarbonize sectors of energy demand
- Provide socio-economically sound options for the development of an insular community
Impacts that could be achieved by 2030:
- CO2 emissions reduced by 140 kt per year
- New RES generation units installed: 383 MW of Solar PV and 127 MW of Wind turbines
- Facilitate local employment on RES projects: 390 jobs in RES installations and maintenance
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Contact
Antun Pfeifer
Technical transferring partner in the PRISMI PLUS project
