Incentivi alle nuove infrastrutture d'approvvigionamento gas: il caso del GNL

In the last few years, one of the main concerns of the EU in the energy sector has been that of facilitating the safeguard of security of supply. Import through LNG chain has been identified by the European Council as on of the instruments to achieve this goal. That is why many EU member States have adopted incentive regulation to stimulate new regasification plants. Our paper discusses and compares these regulations and then it focuses on the Italian case. Italy is very reliant on natural gas, but still there are no import infrastructures operated by newcomers. The Italian authority has thus adopted a particularly incentive regulation in order to facilitate newcomers. This regulation (deliberation n. 178/05) has stimulated a filing of new infrastructures higher than all other filing in the rest of the EU. Our paper thus shows that this regulation is over incentive and it both risks to reduce the possibility for newcomers to enter the market and, at the same time, it can create considerable costs to the entire Italian gas system.