Terna S p A : and the Municipality and Metropolitan city of Catania sign agreements for the Paternò-Pantano-Priolo power line and the Vizzini substation

The agreements between Terna and the Municipality of Catania and between Terna and the Metropolitan City of Catania were signed today, during a press conference held with the Mayor Salvo Pogliese and Terna's Head of Administrative Process Management, Adel Motawi, for the environmental compensation and rebalancing measures linked to the 380 kV "Paternò-Pantano-Priolo" power line and the Vizzini substation.

Terna's investment in the Municipality of Catania will be over €1.7 million, while the Metropolitan City of Catania will receive a total of €800 thousand. The disbursement of the funds is restricted to the completion of specific environmental, urban and public infrastructure redevelopment works which have been defined by the two public entities and approved by Terna.

The signing of this agreement is an important signal of the attention Terna pays to communities. Dialogue within the territory represents one of the company's operational priorities and it is essential for ensuring transparency and profitability. The process that led to the authorisation decree of the Paternò-Pantano-Priolo power line, in fact, began in 2006, with a long phase of public consultation with all the bodies involved with the aim of listening to the requests received from the territories that would be affected by the passage of the new power line.

"The Municipal Administration" - said Mayor Salvo Pogliese - "has identified particularly relevant projects for the territory in strategic areas of the city, such as the redevelopment of public spaces in the waterfront area from the port entrance in via Dusmet to piazza Giovanni XXIII, in the central station but also in a playground in Librino and parks and video surveillance for environmental protection in the outlying areas. The agreements made with Terna" - added Pogliese - "constitute an important sign that attention is being paid to the territory and for this I thank the company that is upgrading the power lines and that, thanks to this transfer of resources, allows us to carry out maintenance projects that we have not been able to do because of the turmoil and the mountain of debts we inherited. A breath of fresh air" - concluded the Mayor - "to carry out works that in some cases have been expected for decades. For example, the pitiful condition of Piazza dei Martiri, once called the plain of the statue in the local dialect "o chianu a statua", left in a state of disrepair and which can now finally be refurbished, it will be the first project to be completed, thanks to a €400,000 project that we have drawn up and which will shortly be up for tender, because we plan to open the first construction sites in January and February."

Mayor Pogliese has announced the details of which works will be carried out with the environmental compensation projects: extraordinary maintenance and restoration of existing vegetation and multicolour LED lighting system; Piazza Martiri della Libertà - redevelopment of green and pedestrian spaces; partial redevelopment of Via Dusmet from the port to Piazza dei Martiri; including the playground in via Castagnola in Librino; cameras for surveillance against illegal dumping of waste in roadside parking areas in the metropolitan area of Catania; redevelopment of urban spaces within the boundary of the cemetery and Piazza delle Belle in the old San Berillo district. As for the €800 thousand allocated by Terna to the metropolitan city close to Mount Etna, Pogliese announced that €100 thousand euros will be allocated to four maintenance projects in the municipalities of Vizzini, Mineo, Licodia Eubea and Militello Val di Catania. Another €700,000 will be used for lighting the road that leads to Maas, the large agri-food market in the Bicocca area of ​Catania, a wholesale commercial structure whose service road is still lacking the public lighting system.

Once completed, the Paternò-Pantano-Priolo power line will ensure improvement of the reliability and safety of the electricity grid in Eastern Sicily, reducing the risk of blackouts. Benefits to the landscape are also noteworthy: 63 km of new power lines instead of the 155 km of overhead power lines that will be removed and 400 old pylons that will be demolished. Environmental benefits are instead linked to the new Vizzini substation, which will allow the full power produced by the plants from non-programmable renewable sources, currently not fully exploited, to be fed into the grid.

The municipal councillors for Public Works and Urban Planning, Enrico Trantino, Pippo Arcidiacono, for Maintenance and Mobility and for Community Policy, Sergio Parisi, the director of Municipal Urban Planning, Biagio Bisignani, the Head of Cabinet of the Municipality, Giuseppe Ferraro, and of the Metropolitan City, Giuseppe Galizia, were all also present at the signing of the agreement together with the Municipal technicians who will be in charge of completing the projects.

Terna, which manages over 4,500 km of high and extra-high-voltage power lines and 75 electrical substations in the region, as part of its 2021-2025 "Driving Energy" Business Plan, will invest over €1.7 billion in Sicily to develop the local electricity grid and increase its resilience in the context of the energy transition promoted by the company. The planned works will involve a total of 500 companies and 2,000 workers and technicians.