Terna’s early provisional data on electricity demand for 2013 in Italy shows the biggest fall since 2009

• The biggest fall since 2009
• Green production on the increase, traditional production declining

Rome, Italy, 10-1-2014 — /EuropaWire/ — For the second year running demand for electricity in Italy has declined. Terna’s early provisional data on the electricity demand in 2013 show a fall of 3.4% compared to 2012, which in turn had closed with a drop of 1.9% on 2011. In general terms, this is the largest decline since the beginning of the century after that of 2009, when the decrease versus the prior year was 5.7% (see the Table on page 2).

The total energy demand required in Italy in 2013 amounted to 317.1 billion kWh. Based on the same number of days, the reduction was 3.1% in consideration of the fact that 2012 had one extra working day since it was a leap year.

At the territorial level, the most significant drops were registered in Sardinia (-16.4%) and in the North-West macro-area (-7.8%), which includes Liguria, Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta.

According to the initial estimates, in 2013 electricity demand was met 86.7% by national production (of which 56.8% thermoelectric, 16.5% hydroelectric, 1.7% geothermal, 4.7% wind power and 7.0% photovoltaic production) and the remainder (13.3%) by the balance of electricity exchanged with other countries. In detail, net national production (277.4 billion kWh) dropped by 3.6% compared to 2012. There were increases in hydroelectric (+21.4%), photovoltaic (+18.9%), wind power (+11.6%) and geothermal production (+1.0%), while thermoelectric production declined (-12.0%).

Regarding the month of December 2013, the quantity of electricity required in Italy, amounting to 26.1 billion kWh, declined by 2.2% compared to December 2012. Net of the effects of temperature and calendar differences, however, the change in electricity demand for December 2013 was -2%. Compared to the corresponding month of December 2012 there was one more working day (20 vs 19) and an average monthly temperature around one and a half degrees higher. The 26.1 billion kWh required for the month of December 2013 were distributed 45.5% in the North, 29.0% in the Center, and 25.5% in the South. At the territorial level, the variation in electricity demand in December 2013 was negative throughout the country: -2.5% in the North, -1.8% in Central Italy and -2.1% in the South. In December 2013, the electricity demand was met 86.3% by national production (-1.8% of net production compared with December 2012) and the remainder (13.7%) by the balance of electricity exchanged with other countries (-5% compared to December 2012). In detail, net national production (22.7 billion kWh) fell by 1.8% compared to December 2012. In particular, photovoltaic production continued to increase (+27.1%), whereas wind power was in decline (-36.9%); hydro and thermal production were substantially unchanged. The short-term profile for December 2013 showed a seasonally adjusted variation in electricity demand compared to the previous month (November 2013) of nil. The general trend continued to show a decline.

The detailed analysis of the provisional 2013 and final 2012 monthly electricity demand is available in the publication “Rapporto Mensile sul Sistema Elettrico”, (Italian version only) under the section “Sistema elettrico >> Dispacciamento >>Dati esercizio” at www.terna.it.

Table: electricity demand in Italy (2000-2013)

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