The latest move came in June, when the government cleared 14 solar and wind projects with a combined capacity of 530 megawatts. The projects was stalled by conflicting positions between the Environment Ministry, which supported them, and cultural heritage authorities, which opposed them. It is not enough, but it is a sign.

In a world hungry for energy, wind and solar power offer a way to offset rising prices and limited energy-supply. The direction is clear, but the road is anything but smooth. At the end of the month, Italy’s installed renewable capacity reached 88.1 gigawatts: 47.7 gigawatts of solar and 14 gigawatts of wind. Italy’s National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan, or PNIEC, sets a target of 131 gigawatts by 2030. That leaves more than 46 gigawatts to add, meaning the country would have to install 18 gigawatts a year — more than twice the pace of the past two years. According to ANEV, the wind-energy industry association, 2025 saw a slowdown driven by “uncertain policies, contradictory regulations and administrative obstacles.”

This is the backdrop for Renexia, which aims to become the industrial face of Italy’s offshore-wind push. To understand this ambition, it helps to start from the beginning.

The company is the cornerstone of the Toto Group, which has spent more than 60 years building complex infrastructure — roads, railways, AirOne flights, steel structures and construction projects — with the ability to manage an entire project from start to finish. Drawing on that tradition as a general contractor, the group has moved decisively into renewable energy.

Founded in 2011, Renexia is now at the forefront of that diversification, with operations spanning solar power, onshore wind, gas hubs, nuclear fusion and offshore wind. Its most ambitious project has a name and a location: Med Wind, in the Strait of Sicily, about 80 kilometers off the coast of Trapani. The floating wind farm will have a capacity of 2.8 gigawatts, making it the largest in the Mediterranean, with 18.8-megawatt turbines among the most powerful in the world. The project has entered the detailed engineering phase, and the company plans to manufacture the turbines in Italy. It has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy, and Managing Director Riccardo Toto has met several times with Minister Adolfo Urso.

The promise now has an address: Ortona. In the Abruzzo port area, the InVento Italia project will create Italy’s first factory producing turbines and blades for floating offshore wind, targeting markets in the Mediterranean and North Africa. The planned investment is €850 million, with more than 3,100 direct jobs and another 2,000 in the surrounding supply chain. The regional government has opened talks with the municipality and port authority and has called for the appointment of a commissioner to speed up the approval process. Completing the plan is a possible steel-fabrication plant in Taranto, representing another €150 million investment.

The company already has a project to point to. Beleolico, inaugurated in Taranto in 2022, is the Mediterranean’s first offshore wind farm, with 10 turbines and a capacity of 30 megawatts — enough to meet the electricity needs of 60,000 people. Abroad, through its US Wind subsidiary, the group has gained experience along the U.S. Atlantic coast, bringing technologies developed there back to Italy.

Behind the numbers is a vision of the future that Toto makes no secret from. Energy demand over the next decade, driven in part by data centers, will be enormous. And in a country that cannot simply cover itself with solar panels, offshore wind becomes the most practical answer while Italy awaits nuclear power. But the stakes go beyond renewable energy: The goal is to make the leap from a clean energy source to a new industrial sector. Speaking at the Portofino Talks, Toto broadened the focus to Europe.

Since 2022, the continent has reduced its dependence on Russian gas, “but reducing one dependency does not mean achieving energy independence.” The problem is not the supplier but the system: “Europe has changed suppliers. It has not yet changed its architecture.” According to Toto, “with 20 gigawatts, offshore wind could generate about €60 billion in added value for the Italian economy and create 30,000 highly specialized jobs that do not exist today.”

The gap between Italy and the rest of Europe remains wide. Germany alone has 125,000 people employed in the wind industry and nearly 84,000 in solar. But something is also changing among established energy companies, and not only offshore. Edison has completed the full reconstruction of its wind farm in Abruzzo, which is now back in operation with a capacity of 186 megawatts. Enel, meanwhile, has acquired an operating 84-megawatt wind farm in Campania, with average annual production of 0.2 terawatt-hours, for €145 million. The deal is expected to add about €16 million a year to the group’s consolidated ordinary EBITDA. It is part of a broader trajectory: Zero-emissions generation already accounts for 81.4% of Enel Group’s total generation, and the company has set a 2040 target for reaching net-zero emissions.

ERG is also moving decisively to revive wind power through repowering, replacing older facilities with more powerful and efficient turbines. In Sardinia, it has received final approval to rebuild the Nulvi-Ploaghe wind farm. The number of turbines will fall from 51 to 27, while capacity will rise from the current 43 megawatts to more than 121 megawatts. Annual production is expected to reach about 300 gigawatt-hours, nearly four times current output. The planned investment is about €170 million. In Carlentini, Sicily, and Greci-Montaguto, Campania, two other projects will increase combined capacity from 69 to 141 megawatts, with expected annual production of more than 300 gigawatt-hours.

These are signs that the clean-energy sector — driven by the goal of lowering prices — is no longer the preserve of pioneers. Major utilities are now investing in the sector, building industrial capacity and generating financial returns around it. The bottlenecks, however, remain the same: lengthy permitting processes, overlapping jurisdictions and regulatory uncertainty.

“Italy now has an opportunity to build an innovative industrial supply chain around offshore wind,” says Mauro Fabris, ANEV’s Vice President for offshore wind.

But making it happen will require clearing those obstacles.

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