The tricolour energy that unites Italy

We stand alongside Italy with all our energy. A tricolor light illuminates our power plants, which continue to guarantee an essential service for the country. It’s a symbolic gesture with which we also light up our company’s buildings and headquarters, as well as some of the places that represent the culture and identity of our country.

These include Rome’s Palazzo Chigi, the seat of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (Italian Government). We decided to shine a tricolor on its facade in order to help reinforce our national community’s values of unity, responsibility and solidarity, and this coincides with the 159thanniversary of the Unification of Italy.

It’s another way of showing that Italy is in our hearts at this difficult time and to emphasise that this bond is even stronger as we all fight against the Coronavirus.

We have opted for high energy-efficient LED projectors, a technology that allows for optimal performances. In some offices, a dusk-to-dawn sensor automatically switches on the lights only when the sun goes down, further minimising consumption. In other cases, the timer that activates the tricolour lighting was carefully set in order to avoid any waste of energy.

In Turin, when we tested the lights on our offices, neighbours played the national anthem by Mameli – thus confiming our message and the fact we all need to feel closer in these difficult times.

The power plants included in the initiative will also be illuminated in the colours of the Italian flag every night for the entire duration of the COVID-19 healthcare crisis. We launched the project on April 2 with the Ettore Majorana power station in Termini Imerese, in Sicily.

“The tricolour has always been a symbol of unity and fraternity", declared Giuseppe Fumarola, Deputy Gas Power Plant Manager South Italy, "and it now glows where our power stations are pouring energy into the grid to go out to the entire country.” 

A few days later Tuscany followed suit by illuminating the cooling towers at the Larderello and Castelnuovo Val di Cecina geothermal plants, and the Santa Barbara power station. In Sicily, the Archimede gas-powered station at Priolo Gargallo, the Vigata power station at Porto Empedocle, the Caltavuturo wind farm and the 3SUN "sun factory" in Catania also lit up. The green, white and red tricolour similarly appeared on the hydroelectric plants at Castel Giubileo in Rome, Nove in Vittorio Veneto (near Treviso), Taccani in Trezzo sull'Adda in Lombardy and Ancipa in Sicily. These colours could also be seen on the wind farm at Collarmele in Abruzzo, on the gas-powered station at Pietrafitta in Umbria and on the buildings of the Porto Corsini and La Casella power plants in Emilia Romagna.

“We wanted to send out a message of unity to emphasise the spirit of solidarity with which we are all battling this invisible enemy,” said Alessio Cianchi, Larderello Geothermal Area Manager. In 2018, to mark the 200th anniversary of the geothermal industry, the constellations were projected onto the Larderello towers to make a symbolic energy connection between the sky and the deepest recesses of the Earth where geothermal energy is produced. But the Italian tricolour illumination project, which began on 3 April, will live on in all our memories because of its visual and symbolic impact.  We are now channelling the same farsightedness that drove us to focus on renewables to tackle the COVID-19 emergency. Italy will similarly need to be farsighted when it plans its future and endeavours to get the country working again, once the crisis has passed.

Enel Cuore’s commitment

We have also expressed our deep bond with the nation with a practical contribution from our not-for-profit Enel Cuore. Through a donation of 23 million euros, we are supporting the leading bodies involved in providing healthcare and social assistance in their work on both existing projects and others that are being developed in an ongoing dialogue with the Department of Civil Protection, the national and regional institutions, and the organisations working on the frontline to prevent the spread of the virus.

In the words of Enel and Enel Cuore Chairman Patrizia Grieco, “We are an Italian multinational with deep roots across the country that has made sustainability the mainstay of its strategy. It is therefore not only natural but also our duty to society to help the areas in which we operate and the communities with which we work every day.”

Specifically, Enel Cuore is currently supporting the Civil Protection Department’s work in combating the crisis and it is also supporting hospitals, healthcare structures and bodies in creating new hospital beds and purchasing necessary equipment in the hardest hit areas of Northern Italy and the across the rest of the country.

Enel Cuore is also guaranteeing voluntary sector organisations and local authorities its help in supporting those struggling most as a result of the crisis, and to plan as effectively as possible for the return to normal life after the lifting of restrictions. With this in mind, in recent days, our not-for-profit association made a donation to the Mutual Aid Fund set up by the Mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. 

We are committed to standing with the whole of Italy – even at a distance.