Terna is a major energy transmission grid operator, headed by Luigi Roth, Chairman and Flavio Cattaneo, Chief Executive Officer.
The company is the primary owner of the National High Voltage Electricity Transmission Grid (NTG), with over 60 thousand km of lines throughout the national territory. Terna is the first independent operator in Europe and the seventh in the world in terms of kilometers of lines managed. The company 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 in Italy, 365 days a year and 24 hours a day.
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 has been listed in the Italian Stock Exchange since 2004 (ticker: Bloomberg: TRN IM; ticker Thosmson-Reuters: TRN.MI). Its major shareholder is Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, with 29.99% of shares. 64% of its share capital is held by Italian shareholders, while 36% is held by foreign investors.
Among the principal shareholders of the company: Enel with 5.12% and Pictet Asset Management S.A. with 4.94%. 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 services sector - and on the other, it creates value for shareholders by focusing on results.
In compliance with the best practices followed by major listed companies, Terna adopted a Code of Ethics and yearly publishes its "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 plans and initiatives aimed at creating and maintaining trust with its stakeholders.
Environment and Sustainability
Commitment towards the environment lies at the heart of the Company’s strategic decisions. A fundamental factor is Terna’s approach for coordinating activities with the regional and local authorities, in part achieved by means of the Strategic Environmental Assessment system (SEA) which identifies the best solutions for matching the electricity grid development needs with the necessity of protecting the environment and the local territorial culture.
Since 2002, Terna has entered 16 agreements on the experimental application of the SEA, with the Autonomous Province of Trent and with 15 regions: Piedmont, Calabria, Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Sicily, Campania, Basilicata, Umbria, Tuscany, Marche, Sardinia, Abruzzo, Puglia, Molise, Valle d’Aosta.
Where possible, the concept is upgrading the grid, in other words removing obsolete sections of the grid and replacing them with innovative 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 building 450 km of new high-tech long distance power lines having a lower environmental impact. In addition to removing 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 high voltage 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 also allows reducing the so-called technical transmission losses and this not only leads to savings for end users but also reduces CO2 emissions from the electricity system.
- Biodiversity
- Certifications
Strategy: The 2009–2013 Plan
The 2009-2013 Strategic Plan includes total investments for over 3.4 billion euros, 77% of which for grid development: an increase in dividends by at least 4% per year. The principal projects planned for the Transmission Grid are the following:
- Submarine cable connection between Sardinia and the mainland (SA.PE.I.)
- Sorgente-Rizziconi connection (Sicily/Calabria)
- Grid upgrading in Turin
- Dolo-Camin line (Veneto)
- Santa Barbara-Casellina line (Tuscany)
- Foggia-Benevento line (Apulia/Campania)
- Restructuring of the grid in northern Calabria
- Upgrading of the electricity system in Valcamonica
- Trino-Lacchiarella line (Piedmont/Lombardy)
Performance
2008 Financial Statements
Terna ended 2008 with revenues equal to 1,395.2 million euros, registering a 3.5% increase compared to 2007.
The EBIDTA, equal to 994.7 million euros, grew by 1.7%, while the net income stood at 341.4 million euros.
These results enabled Terna to offer a 2008 dividend equal to 15.8 euro cents per share, +4.6% compared to 2007, thus confirming the 4% guaranteed growth expectations announced in the 2009-2013 Strategic Plan.
The interim dividend of 5.9 euro cents was paid in November 2008 while the final dividend equal to 9.9 euro cents was paid in June 2009.
Investments, equal to 776 million euros, increased by 26% compared to the previous year. 72.3% of these, equal to 561 million euros, were allocated to the development of the National Transmission Grid.
Share Performance
The defensive nature of Terna’s shares has guaranteed, over the years, positive performances actually registering a constant over-performance compared to the Italian reference index particularly during periods of international stock market turmoil. From its listing (June 23, 2004) to October 1, 2009, Terna’s shares gained 55%, guaranteeing a total shareholder return equal to 108%. Terna’s stock market value equals 5.3 billion euros and the Company has increased its capitalization by 1.9 billion euros compared to 2004. The Dividend Yield has always been at the top in the sector, always higher than 5%. Terna was the first Italian company to have adopted from the Anglo-Saxon world and introduced in Italy the procedure of an interim dividend payment.
Transmission Grid
Terna is the company responsible for HV and EHV electricity transmission. Transmitting energy means transferring the electricity produced from the production centers to the consumption areas. To this purpose, lines and transforming stations are needed, being the elements which form the Transmission Grid. The last phase which closes the electricity production process is the distribution, namely the delivery of medium and low voltage electricity to end users.
The system’s numbers
119,437 MVA (MEGA VOLT-AMPERES) THE TRANSFORMATION CAPACITY
1,000 MW THE TRANSFER CAPACITY OF THE MOST POWERFUL LINES
18 INTERCONNECTION LINES WITH FOREIGN COUNTRIES
373 TRANSFORMING STATIONS
0.4 KM THE SHORTEST 380 KV LINE (“OSTIGLIA-OSTIGLIA C.LE”, IN LOMBARDY)
435 KM THE LENGTH OF THE SAPEI CABLE (BETWEEN SARDINIA AND THE MAINLAND)
218 KM THE LONGEST LINE (“MATERA-S. SOFIA”, BETWEEN BASILICATA AND CAMPANIA)
1,600 M THE DEPTH OF THE SAPEI SUBMARINE CABLE (THE DEEPEST IN THE WORLD)
339.5 BILLION KWH THE 2008 DEMAND IN ITALY
56,822 MW THE MAXIMUM POWER DEMAND EVER (12.18.2007)
National Control Centre
Terna’s National Control Center is a 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 the flow of electricity produced in Italy and imported from abroad is monitored moment by moment. It is here that electricity transmission is managed every day in total safety, by performing actions to balance electricity supply and demand.
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.