A Terna primary electric transformer station can also be considered an “industrial plant”

With ruling No. 4994 published on March 10, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court ruled that even a Terna primary electric transformer station can be considered an “industrial plant” under Legislative Decree No. 199/2021, Art. 20, paragraph 8, c-ter 2, for the purpose of identifying areas suitable for the installation of renewables.

The Regional Administrative Court, upholding the appeal brought against the denial measure issued at the end of the simplified authorization procedure for the construction of photovoltaic plant, with a nominal capacity of 4MW, rejected the Administration's argument that the project did not fall within a suitable area because it was more than 500 meters away from industrial plant, since the Terna station had to be consider as “technological infrastructure.”

Recalling some rulings of the Supreme Court that have recognized the “industrial” character of the activity related to the production of energy developed by wind farms and hydroelectric power plants (see Cass. civ, Sec. V, ruling Nos. 14042/2020 and 14007/2024), the Court considers that the notion “industrial plant” should be interpreted “not in a restrictive sense - that is, as an industrial activity functional to the transformation of materials into new products - but also as an activity aimed at the transformation of hydrostatic potential energy into kinetic energy and, therefore, into electrical energy”. 

The Regional Administrative Court points out how, the reason behind Art. 20 paragraph 8 letter c ter) Legislative Decree 199/2021 - which establishes, even if transitory, the criteria relating to the identification of areas suitable to host the installation of photovoltaic plants - is based on the need to “promote urban decorum and therefore to concentrate, where possible, renewable energy plants in areas already with a strong urban impact”.

The Lazio Regional Administrative Court, therefore, further extends the concept of “industrial plant”, in a sense not dissimilar to what the MASE had already done, with answer no. 130318 to the interpellation of the Municipality of Villalba, last 8 August 2023, recalling in the definition of “establishment” provided in art. 268, paragraph 1, letter h) of Legislative Decree, 3 April 2006, No. 152, recognizing the nature of “industrial establishment” also to ground-mounted photovoltaic plant with a nominal capacity exceeding 20 kW, considering that even a photovoltaic plant can be identified as a “unitary and stable complex or industrial establishment since it is made up of a set of, for example, modules, inverter, storage system, monitoring system that are interconnected as an overall production cycle, and that the qualification of establishment also refers to the place used in a stable manner for the exercise of one or more activities”.