Go to the restaurant and order an appetizer based on octopus, a plate of pasta, an inviting lobster and an final sorbet. After tasking your lunch, the account arrives and, surprised, each flow has the same price, that of the astice, the most expensive. Even the sorbet costs you so much. Absurd right? Yet it is what happens to those who buy electricity. The “menu” in this case is composed of energy that comes from hydroelectric systems, wind turbines, photovoltaic panels and gas thermoelectric power plants. And as in the imagination restaurant, the final price of the customer is based on the dearest product: that is, the kilowatts generated by the gas plants. A perverse mechanism that heavily damages the Italian economy. In fact, we are a country that still depends too much on gas, has less production on renewables of other nations and does not have nuclear power: thus more or less 40 percent of electricity production in Italy comes from the plants that burn methane, whose prices travel at double levels compared to 2019.
And since the final price of electricity is determined by the most expensive producers, the result is devastating: According to the data of the Confindustria Study Center, on the Italian Electric Bag the Pun (unique national price, that is, the cost of reference to the wholesale of electricity) in January was on average of 139 euros per megawattora against 111 euros in Spain, the 108 Euro of Germany, the 98 euros in France and the 61 euros of the United States. It is evident that with this expense the Italian industry is displaced and in particular the most energetic companies are forced to reduce production or to close the doors. And if companies produce less, even the gross domestic product grows more slowly and so for the government it is more complicated to reduce the deficit-pil relationship. In other words, dear-energy is the number one problem for the country and if it is not resolved, its consequences go far beyond the fate of individual companies.
But why if in Italy about 60 percent of electricity are produced by the now cheap renewable sources, must we continue to pay it like that of thermoelectric power plants? How is the price of electricity form concretely? As in other European countries, it is fixed with a mechanism similar to a bag called energy market manager. Every day all energy manufacturers offer electricity they are able to provide for the next day, indicating a certain price. On the other side of are the buyers, that is, the companies that sell the current to end customers. The precedence is given to the cheapest producers: wind farms, photovoltaics, hydroelectric systems. The wind turbine manager could theoretically offer a very low price but will base his offer according to the market trend, keeping slightly under the maximum. Lastly, the most expensive offers are accepted, those of the gas plants, which naturally restore the prices of the raw material and cannot be low otherwise they go to loss. And as happens with securities on the stock exchange, if buyers also accept the dearest offer, the final price is that. And almost daily in Italy it happens that it is necessary to use electricity generated with gas.
In the rest of Europe, on the other hand, it is rarer that they are called to make their contribution the plants with methane, given that there is a lot of nuclear or renewable production. And the prices are so lower. It is not over, because the next day in Italy Terna, the company that manages the high voltage network, must proceed with a series of adjustments to perfectly coincide the demand and offer of electricity, asking the most flexible subjects, that is, those with the central gas, to increase or cut production. A paid inconvenience with money borne by our bills. “It is true, the formation of the price of electricity is a system to be reformed which, however, has its own raison d’etre: that is, however, ensuring the availability of an asset” explains Alessandro Marangoni, CEO of the Althesys consultancy firm, specialized in the environment sectors , energy, infrastructure, utilities. «The reason is that the markets were born when the gas cost little while renewables were more expensive. The differences between the prices of the different sources were not as macroscopic as now ».
To worsen the picture for Italian consumers there are various charges: Some questionable, such as those for the disposal of nuclear power plants or past incentives for renewables, which perhaps, given the emergency situation, could be spread on general taxation. Then there are ETS certificates, Co emissions shares2 which represent an additional economic aggravation for the most energetic companies. How to get out of it? Marangoni recalls the solutions that is being thought of in Italy and Europe: from the imposition of a roof at the price of renewables, essentially requesting part of the major margins obtained thanks to the high prices, to the creation of a sort of market reserved for producers Green: “With a rod system” clarifies Althesys’ number one “I, State, I offer you, a renewable manager, a lower price than that of the market but which still makes you earn and cover you from the risk of a drop of prices. A system on a voluntary basis that should start in transitional form in Italy pending the green light of Brussels ». In Europe we also think about the possibility of leaving the electricity spot market only to thermoelectric producers and use the auction mechanism with renewables, generating an average lower price.
In the meantime, Giorgio Tomassetti, CEO of the Italian branch of Octopus, an English company that has become the largest electricity provider of the United Kingdom, claims that in Italy the renewables could be exploited to lower costs: «If you invest more in appropriate technologies, green sources can be used better. Consumption can also be reduced to certain areas to respond to application peaks. Thus the thermoelectric power plants would be used. ” But for companies that consume more energy there is also another way, what is technically called PPA, Power Purchase Agreement, that is, the purchase of electricity directly from a manufacturer at a fixed price. “They are quite common agreements in the United States and the United Kingdom, less in Italy,” says Marangoni. “Usually they are signed by the managers of large renewable plants, which thus guarantee banks the solidity of the investment”. For this, the consultant underlines, developing renewable systems further could help reduce bills and improve the competitiveness of the system.
