Nicola Saldutti (Corriere della Sera), Massimo Battaini (Prysmian Group)

Yes, I'd say grids have always been fundamental, but in these last two years, the push toward renewable activity, toward the energy transition—that is, the conversion of electricity generation from fossil fuels, from gas, etc., to renewables—has made grids even more necessary and important to guarantee this transition. The reason is this: renewable energy generation doesn't occur where consumption and population exist; it occurs in remote areas. It happens in solar installations, which are clearly distant from high-density zones, and it happens especially, as you rightly said, in the North Sea. Offshore wind farms are and will be the ideal zone for developing and generating renewable wind energy. However, because renewable generation is far from consumption points, Germany is truly a key example. We have approximately 4,000 kilometers of cables to install to connect the North Sea—where this energy is generated—with German end users, which are heavily concentrated in the south of the country. And these 4,000 kilometers will transport this renewable energy. But this is a global, European, and worldwide concept: renewable energy sources are far from consumption, so the connection between generation and end use is fundamental. And this drives the cable market into strong growth. To give you an idea, these types of connections between generation and consumption, which are high-power—meaning cables with great capacity to transmit power—this market has grown many times over. We've gone from a global market value of 3 billion euros per year to 10 billion. This happened in the last two years, and these 10 billion will continue to grow as new projects are launched each year. They will remain solid for the coming decades because the energy transition and the goal of zero emissions, which many countries have now committed to reaching by 2050, and some countries even on a more accelerated timeline, is now a priority for governments. They have also substantially increased funding: in Europe, the Green Deal, REPowerEU; in North America, the Biden plan—these are massive economic resources injected into the system to facilitate and enable this energy transition. But I'll add another theme: it's not only the decentralization of generation, it's the distance from consumption that creates this need for cables. Also, the world is electrifying—many families, many residential and industrial activities are replacing gas for heating or industrial processes with electric sources, to reduce dependence and lower CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Electric vehicles are another example: replacing internal combustion vehicles with electric vehicles requires additional electricity supply. This, combined with the fact that the world population is growing and the consumption of this growing population is increasing, means a continuous demand for electricity. Electricity demand will roughly double in about 30 years compared to today, and this electricity is, fortunately for operators in the sector, transmitted via cables. So strengthening grids is fundamental for the energy transition, for electrification, but also for digitalization. The continuous demand for data leads to ever more data centers for consolidating and managing this data. These data centers are highly energy-intensive—they consume a lot of energy for cooling systems and for powering the servers they house. The transition from 4G to 5G in telecommunications brings additional energy consumption. So grids become fundamental for all these factors: the energy transition, renewable generation, electrification, and digitalization.

Absolutely. There's an entire supply chain of value connected with this energy transition and digitalization. They are two major challenges for operators like us. Certainly, one is expanding production capacity, because this market demand requires more production and more sales, clearly. But that's not enough—technology is a winning factor. We can't use cables with performance from 5 or 10 years ago to transmit this growing quantity of energy, otherwise the energy transition would become unsustainable in the long run—it would be too expensive. So the technological developments we are pursuing, in which we continually invest approximately 110 million euros per year in R&D, are what enable all our cables to transmit ever-greater quantities of energy, to connect generation and distribution points over ever-longer distances, so ever-longer cables, and to tackle marine crossings at ever-greater depths. The challenge is investment and technology for operators like us. And in this sense, there's a lot of Italy involved. We invested in two vessels built by an Italian operator, Fincantieri—one delivered last year and one just ordered, to be delivered within two years. These vessels are unique in the world in their capacity to install cables at depths up to 2,000 meters. One such connection is being carried out by an Italian client, Terna, to link Corsica to Sardinia and Italy—we will face a marine installation at 2,000 meters depth for these energy cables. And our vessels and our cable technology can handle even greater depths—up to 3,000 meters. This will make connections possible between Europe and North Africa that were previously impossible due to marine depth. So investments in vessels, but also investments in an important asset we have in southern Italy, which originated in Arco Felice, Pozzuoli, where we have the world's most powerful and largest submarine cable factory. We produce approximately 1,200 kilometers of submarine cables per year at this factory. We deliver them to the vessel that docks at the pier next to the factory, and this vessel then installs them throughout the Mediterranean, in northern seas, across all of Europe, and even beyond Europe. Equally fundamental are other investments in southern Italy at a factory we have in Caserta, where we produce medium-voltage cables—not high-voltage, medium-voltage—to meet the distribution needs within Italy and beyond. So technology is a key factor in making this energy transition sustainable. To do this, we need people: we constantly need to attract talent and develop talent. We have internal academies to develop this knowledge and develop these people. Without the people, the assets alone would not sustain Prysmian's leadership—keeping it constant and sustainable in the long term.