Terna is a major energy transmission grid operator. The company is the primary owner of the National High-Voltage Electricity Transmission Grid (NTG), with 98,3% of the country’s electricity infrastructure. TheC ompany, led by Luigi Roth - Chairman and Flavio Cattaneo - Chief Executive Officer, is also responsible
for the transmission and dispatching (*) of energy throughout the entire territory, and therefore for the
safe management of the balance between electricity supply and demand 365 days a year and 24 hours a day
in Italy. Terna is an outstanding Italian company with over 3500 employees that are daily involved in
guaranteeing the electricity system's safety throughout the national territory. The Company manages grid
planning, development and maintenance by providing know-how and technology in order to improve grid
efficiency. Terna becomes the first independent operator in Europe, through the acquisition of the Enel Alta
Tensione (High Voltage) assets with almost 60.000 km of power lines. Terna is confirmed as the first independent operator in Europe and the seventh
in the world according to kilometers of lines managed. Terna has been listed in the Borsa Italiana since 2004
(ticker: TRN IM). www.terna.it
Its major shareholder Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, with 29.99% of shares. 64% of share capital
is held by Italian shareholders, while 36% is held by foreign funds. Among the principal shareholders of the
company: Enel, Pictet Asset Management S.A. with 5.19% and Generali with 2.03% (**). The remaining 60%,
approximately, is held by institutional and retail investors. This structure guarantees the Company mission:
it ensures, on the one hand, a public service such as electricity transmission - with features of the service sector - and on the other hand, it creates value for shareholders by focusing on results. Abroad, Terna holds control of Terna Participações S.A., a company listed in the São Paolo Brazilian stock exchange since 2006 (ticker: TRNA11BZ), operating in the electricity transmission sector in Brazil and owning nearly 3,330 km of power lines. It is the second private company in terms of market share in the Brazilian market, and its revenues represent 9.3% of the total revenues of the energy sector in the country. In compliance with the best practices followed by major listed companies, Terna adopted an Ethical Code and it yearly publishes a “Sustainability Report”. This publication illustrates how the Company’s responsibility towards the social and environmental impacts of its activities affects management aspects. Moreover, it shows how this is applied to programs and actions aimed at creating and maintaining trust among stakeholders.
Terna is the company responsible for the transmission of electricity along the HV and EHV grid throughout the territory. Transmitting energy means transferring the produced electricity from the production centres to the consumption areas. To this purpose, lines and transforming stations are needed, being the elements which constitute the Transmission Grid. The last phase which closes the row of the electrical system is the distribution that is the delivery of medium and low voltage electricity to the final users in Italy.
Terna’s National Control Centre is the central node in the country’s electricity system. The control room offers grassroots control, while also providing an overall view of the entire high and extra high voltage grid that transmits electricity throughout Italy. It is here that, moment by moment, the flow of electricity produced in Italy and imported from abroad is controlled. It is here that every day the transmission of electricity is managed in total safety, by performing actions to balance supply and demand of electricity. Monitoring activities are conducted on an ongoing basis, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for managing energy flows with over 340 billion kilowatt-hours per year.
Over 3.4 billion euro: overall Group investment, 77% of which for grid development: a growth of dividends by at least 4% per year.
Commitment towards the environment lies at the heart of the Company’s strategic decisions and of the important process of developing electrical infrastructure. A fundamental factor is Terna’s approach with regional and local authorities, in part achieved by means of the Strategic Environmental Assessment system (SEA) which identifies, for the given situation, the best solutions for reconciling the need to develop the electricity grid with the necessity of protecting the environment and local territorial culture. Since 2002, Terna has reached agreements on the experimental application of SEA techniques with 14 regional authorities: Piedmont, Calabria, Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Sicily, Campania, Basilicata, Umbria, Tuscany, Marche, Sardinia, Abruzzo, Puglia, Molise and the Autonomous Province of Trento.
Where possible the concept is upgrading the grid, in other words the removal of obsolete sections of the grid to be replaced by innovative, high-technology solutions with a lower environmental impact. Terna carried out significant improvement in sustainable development of infrastructures with the “10 Projects” plan, that includes pulling down over 1,200 km of power lines and installing 450 km of new high-tech long distance power lines having a lower environmental impact. In addition to dismantling 4,800 pylons, work to be carried out will allow recovering building materials (steel, glass, aluminum) for a total of over 60 thousand tons, equal to ten times the weight of the Eiffel Tower. Terna has already removed 130 pylons in Valtellina and 28 in the Molentargius park in Sardinia, ten of which from the pond which is the habitat for the pink flamingos. Furthermore, grid development work allows reducing the so-called technical transmission losses and this not only leads to savings for end users but also reduces harmful emissions. A more efficient grid leads to lower losses, hence less CO2 production and emissions by the electrical system. Terna performs other important activity regarding the protection of biodiversity in cooperation with the Istituto Superiore di Sanità and the Ornis Italica Association. Since 1998 Terna has placed nesting boxes on high- voltage power lines. Today, Terna has over 350 nesting boxes on its pylons, most of which are inhabited by kestrels, small falcons that are common in Italy but whose reproduction was limited by the lack of nesting sites. Terna is equipped with an integrated management system for quality, the environment, workplace safety and health protection. The Company has built the Security Operation Center (SOC), a high-tech center, with the task of monitoring the safety status of the entire company structure through activity carried out 24 hours a day. Of the 40 S&P/MIB companies, Terna is among the 5 that can boast the ISO9001 quality certification, the ISO 14001 environmental certification and the OHSAS18001 health protection certification. Furthermore, Terna is among the ten European companies granted with the Ruban d’Honneur from the European Business Award 2009 in the Sustainability category. The Company is included in the FTSE4Good, the prestigious London Financial Times Stock Exchange index, that comprises the best European companies in terms of sustainable development, and also in the EURO Ethical Index, which is for Socially Responsible European companies with the highest capitalization.
* Electricity cannot be stored. Therefore the amount of energy required by all consumers (families and companies) has to be generated from moment to moment, and its transmission has to be monitored so that supply and demand are always in balance, thus guaranteeing continuity and security in service provision. The management of this energy flow on the grid is called dispatching.
** Data as of May 7, 2009
