the inclusive transition for small and medium-sized enterprises – Corriere.it

The energy transition must be inclusive to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises can also be active participants in the change. “It is a process that passes from a deep and careful education on energy issues to which is combined an integrated legislative and economic support, to be increased and improved”, says Simone Demarchi, managing director of Axpo Italia, the main producer of renewable energy in Switzerland and global player in the trading and commercialization of photovoltaic and wind energy. While representing the majority of the Italian entrepreneurial fabric, «SMEs are decidedly heterogeneous, also in terms of consumption. For this reason it is not easy to identify valid interventions across the board or designing standardized proposals». Hence the need to “put professionalism and customized solutions at their disposal to respond effectively to increasingly complex and unique needs”.

The geopolitical shock

Recent geopolitical events have conditioned the energy markets and, consequently, the increase in prices has hit small and medium-sized enterprises hard. But it was also an opportunity to rethink their goals in terms of sustainability. For Demarchi “having a clear strategy is certainly a way to support the transition objectives of an entire country”. In fact, Italian companies are becoming increasingly aware of their energy choices. “The interest of non-energy-intensive companies has also significantly increased in tools that allow for sustainable energy supply, the stabilization of the cost of energy and the possibilities linked to energy self-production”. So Axpo has decided to support companies in the transition process.

From ten years to three

Founded in 1914, Axpo today has over 6,000 employees and is present in more than 30 countries in Europe, North America and Asia. It is the fourth operator in the free energy market in Italy, where it arrived in 2000, with a turnover of 12.57 billion euros in the 2021/2022 fiscal year, it supplies energy to Italian companies for a value of almost 5 thousand gigawatt hours. To support companies in becoming increasingly green, Axpo has launched the Green Flexy Ppa (power purchase agreement, agreements for the purchase and supply of renewable energy). These allow you to sign contracts that vary between three and five years, compared to ten years for traditional PPAs, and to receive energy produced entirely from renewable sources, up to 20 gigawatt hours, coming from a specific plant. “They have been the answer to a need for economic stability of companies in a moment of great variability in prices”, underlines Demarchi. «Their development starts from flexibility by sizing the characteristics of Corporate PPAs to the needs of smaller companies. Both in terms of time duration and consumption».

Flexibility

“They represent a way to guarantee flexibility in supply, to be able to count on a stable price for the entire duration of the agreement and to participate in the creation of new plants for the production of green energy”. Not only that, “we have recorded a greater demand, even from smaller companies, to have a more direct relationship with the energy exchange”. This is how the Smart Portfolio proposal was born, which allows SMEs to change the approach to their energy supply and business strategy, as well as constituting a new and potential source of savings on the cost of purchasing energy. The main objective is in fact to release the supply from a single moment of the year, offering greater freedom of action to seize opportunities almost in real time.

New commitments

For Demarchi, «certainly curiosity about these tools is very high because they find that flexibility and that control in the management of investments dedicated to energy supply they felt they needed.” But to implement a real transformation, Italian companies need time and training. The complexity and challenges associated with these issues are still many, furthermore innovations are revolutionizing the way in which energy is produced, distributed and consumed. «We continue to work on the most innovative and advantageous proposals for energy efficiency: the installation of photovoltaic self-production systems in primis but also cogeneration and trigeneration, our team is constantly looking for solutions that adapt to changing energy contexts ». First the pandemic and then the war in Ukraine showed that changes can happen quickly and suddenly. The lesson learned by now is that we must not be caught unprepared but respond with increasingly innovative and sustainable solutions. And even Italian SMEs must equip themselves with the necessary tools. Precisely from this point of view, concludes Demarchi, “we wanted to collaborate, within the perimeter of our activities, to secure the main backbone of the Italian economic fabric”.