article may require cleanup to meet wikipedia s quality standards . the specific problem is the article contains redundant information please help improve this article if you can . june 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message enel s.p.a. enel s headquarters in rome type societ per azioni traded as bit enel industry electricity natural gas founded november 27 1962 ; 53 years ago 1962 11 27 founder italian government headquarters rome italy area served italy key people francesco starace ceo maria patrizia grieco chairman products natural gas and electricity generation and distribution revenue 75 billion 2014 1 operating income 31billion 2014 1 profit 517 million 2014 1 total assets 169.80 billion 2011 2 total equity 54.44 billion 2011 2 owner ministry of economy and finance italy 25.500 % other minority shareholders 2 % each number of employees 68 961 2014 1 subsidiaries enel produzione enel servizio elettrico enel energia enel green power enel distribuzione enel sole enel trade enel investment holdinds website www.enel.com enel is an italian multinational manufacturer and distributor of electricity and gas . enel which originally stood for national entity for electricity ente nazionale per l energia elettrica was first established as a public body at the end of 1962 and then transformed into a limited company in 1992 . 3 in 1999 following the liberalization of the electricity market in italy enel was privatized . 4 as of february 2015 the italian government is the owner of 25.5 % of the company s shares . 5 6 7 8 in 2014 enel employed about 70 000 people 1 9 10 11 12 13 works in about 30 countries 14 15 and at the end of 2013 with 80.5 billion euro of revenue and a market capitalization of 31 billion euro is the 56th company in the world by revenue . 16 17 18 the company is a component of the euro stoxx 50 stock market index . 19 contents 1 history 1.1 1898 1962 towards a national policy for electricity 1.2 1962 establishing the national entity for electricity 1.3 1963 1970 modernization and development of the network 1.3.1 national dispatch centre 1.3.2 rural electrification 1.3.3 high voltage network and connection to the islands 1.3.4 the vajont disaster 1.4 1970 1980 the energy crisis and the search for new sources 1.4.1 the energy crisis 1.4.2 new plants 1.5 1980 1990 renouncing nuclear power 1.5.1 new plants and alternative energy 1.5.2 referendum the closing of nuclear power plants and the new national energy plan 1.6 1990 2000 liberalisation and privatisation 1.6.1 new plants and alternative energy 1.6.2 liberalisation privatization and stock market launch 1.6.3 other operations 1.7 2000 2010 environmental policies and internationalization 1.7.1 environmental policies 1.7.2 mergers and acquisitions 1.7.3 new plants and alternative energy 1.7.4 other operations 1.8 2010 today 2 legal problems 3 industrial activities 3.1 corporate activities 3.2 research and development activities 3.3 other operations 4 activities 4.1 electricity production 4.2 research and development 4.3 the italian market 5 international activity 5.1 europe 5.1.1 belgium 5.1.2 bulgaria 5.1.3 cyprus 5.1.4 france 5.1.5 greece 5.1.6 netherlands 5.1.7 romania 5.1.8 russia 5.1.9 slovakia 5.1.10 spain and portugal 5.1.11 turkey 5.2 north america 5.2.1 united states and canada 5.3 south america 5.3.1 argentina 5.3.2 brazil 5.3.3 chile 5.3.4 colombia 5.3.5 ecuador 5.3.6 peru 5.3.7 uruguay 5.4 central america 5.4.1 costa rica 5.4.2 guatemala 5.4.3 mexico 5.4.4 panama 5.5 africa 5.5.1 algeria 5.5.2 egypt 5.5.3 morocco 5.5.4 south africa 6 subsidiaries 6.1 italy 6.2 europe 6.3 latin america 7 company information 7.1 major shareholders 7.2 board of directors 7.3 chairmen 7.4 managing directors 8 marketing 8.1 logo 8.2 expo 2015 8.3 enel cuore 9 controversies 9.1 osage wind llc 9.2 el salvador 10 balance sheets 10.1 analysis of enel s 2006 financial statement 10.2 analysis of enel s 2007 financial statement 10.3 analysis of enel s 2008 financial statement 11 references 12 external links history edit 1898 1962 towards a national policy for electricity edit the hydroelectric power station of rocchetta a volturno in 1898 the production of electricity in italy was of 100 million kilowatt hours 20 21 22 reaching a value of over 56 billion by 1960 . 23 24 the majority of the electricity was produced by regional private companies 25 26 27 or by companies linked to other industrial bodies 28 29 30 31 32 33 that were both local and regional by exploiting the specific characteristic of the territory its hydrogeological resources . 34 35 the state subsidized the construction of power stations and any necessary construction work in the territory in order to increase the production of electricity . 36 37 38 in terms of distribution the state intervened in 1961 by unifying national tariffs on the basis of equal consumption classes through the equalization fund for the electricity sector 39 40 and by requiring power companies to provide access to electricity to everyone . 29 33 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 in 1962 the government institutionalised the entity for electricity with the aim of making electricity a means for the development of the country and in order to define a national policy for electricity based on the experiences of other countries such as france and britain . 45 46 49 50 51 52 1962 establishing the national entity for electricity edit enel logo 1963 1982 at the beginning of 1962 the fanfani iv cabinet made its commitment to the government to put together a proposal for the unification of the national electricity system within three months of the parliament casting its confidence motion . 50 53 54 55 56 during the chamber of deputies assembly of 26 june 1962 the government presented a bill that sanctioned the principles and procedures for the establishment of the entity for electricity e.n.el . . 27 57 58 59 according to the bill enel was going to acquire all assets of all companies operating in the production processing transmission and distribution of electricity with the exception of self producers companies that produced more than 70 % of their electricity for other production processes the same exception was later applied to municipal authorities and of small businesses that did not produce more than 10 million kilowatt hours per year . 60 61 62 63 64 procedures to assess the value of the acquired companies were defined and it was established that compensation were to be paid to creditors in 10 years at an interest rate of 5.5 % . 61 65 in this framework 1962 was to be considered a transition year in which all income and expenses of the acquired companies would be transferred to enel . 1963 was thus the first operational year of the newly formed company . 66 67 68 69 the first companies to be acquired were 70 sip piedmont 71 edison volta lombardy 72 sade veneto 73 74 selt valdarno tuscany sre lazio sme campania sges sicily carbosarda sardinia 1963 1970 modernization and development of the network edit enel s early goals were the modernisation and development of the electricity grid with the construction of high voltage backbones international connections connection to the islands the electrification of rural areas and the creation of the national center for dispatching . these projects were to be co financed by the state through the issuing in 1965 of bonds of a value of over 200 billion italian liras . 75 76 in 1967 enel s supervision was redirected from the committee of ministers to the interministerial committee for economic planning cipe under the ministry of industry . 61 77 78 during this period the production of thermoelectric power surpassed for the very first time that of hydroelectric power . 79 80 national dispatch centre edit in 1963 the national dispatch centre of rome was created in order to manage the energy flows on the network by coordinating the production plants the transmission network the distribution as well as the interconnection of the italian electricity system with that of foreign countries by adjusting in real time the production and transmission of energy on the basis of the actual demand . 3 70 76 81 82 83 84 rural electrification edit in terms of rural electrification the settlements that were not connected to the electricity grid went from 1.27 % in 1960 to 0.46 % in 1964 with over 320 000 new residents connected . in the five year period between 1966 and 1970 further investments for rural electrification were made 80 % of the costs were covered by the state and 20 % by enel those were complemented by reduced rates as an incentive for agricultural development . 85 86 87 88 89 high voltage network and connection to the islands edit in 1968 the construction work of the 380 kv connection between florence and rome began with the aim of joining the high voltage electrical system of the north with that of the south centre . 90 91 around the same time international high voltage connections with france 380 kv venaus villarodin 1969 and switzerland were also put in place . 55 92 in the same years undersea electrical cables were put in place to connect the peninsula and the islands of elba 1966 93 ischia 1967 93 94 and sardinia through corsica 1967 . 80 the vajont disaster edit enel was involved in the vajont dam disaster which took place at the vajont reservoir which was artificially created to produce a large quantity of hydroelectric power . on 9 october 1963 a huge landslide of 260 million cubic metres fell into the reservoir . the dam and power plant had been built by sade societ adriatica di elettricit adriatic electricity company and then sold to edison and had just been transferred as part of the nationalisation process to the newly set up enel . the impact of the landslide created huge waves in the vajont reservoir which partially flooded the villages of erto e casso and swept over the dam totally wiping out the towns in the valley below it longarone pirago rivalta villanova and fa . approximately two thousand people died in the disaster . enel and montedison were charged at the ensuing trial as the companies responsible for the disaster a responsibility considered all more serious because of the predictability of the event . the two companies were forced to pay damages to the communities involved in the catastrophe . 1970 1980 the energy crisis and the search for new sources edit enel advert for a better and more economical use of energy during the years of the energy crisis 1976 1977 95 96 the decade of the 1970s was distinguished by a major energy crisis that led the company to drastic austerity measures and the establishment of a national energy plan that defined the objective of both building new power plants and the search for new energy sources . the energy crisis edit in 1975 as a result of the oil crisis and the austerity measures and following the definition of the first national energy plan pen the aim of the company became that of reducing enel s dependence on hydrocarbons . this was to be achieved with the use of other energy sources which included hydro geothermal increasing the use of coal the waste cycle and in particular with the use of nuclear energy . 61 97 98 99 100 new plants edit several new plants were built in the course of the decade 101 in the early 1970s the construction of the nuclear power station caorso emilia romagna the first major nuclear power plant in italy 840 860 mw began . the station became operational in 1978 . 102 between 1972 and 1978 the hydroelectric plant of taloro was built in the province of nuoro sardinia . 103 in 1973 the hydroelectric plant of san fiorano became operational lombardy . in 1977 a thermoelectric power plant opened in torre del sale near piombino tuscany . 104 at the end of