Late Development Other

On 19 July 2022, ARERA issued Parere 335/2022/I/EEL on Terna's 2021 Ten-Year National Transmission Grid Development Plan, formally expressing an adverse opinion on the second pole of the Italy-Montenegro HVDC interconnection (investment code 401-P) and requiring that the project be placed "in valutazione" — that is, without execution activities within the ten-year planning horizon. The decision rested on three evidentiary findings: (i) the second pole was identified as low priority for the next decade given the expected import of lignite-based electricity from the Balkan area, inconsistent with decarbonisation objectives; (ii) independent cost-benefit verification had returned an IUS (B/C) indicator below 1 in both Sustainable Transition and Distributed Generation scenarios; and (iii) the 2020 target-capacity report did not identify additional capacity needs at the Montenegrin border. This decision effectively froze procurement and construction activity on Pole 2 — a freeze that persisted until ARERA's January 2025 Parere 4/2025/I/EEL mandated fresh optimal-timing analysis, leading to Terna's March 2025 report revising the completion window to 2030-2032.