(Finance) – More than two years have passed since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict which turned the energy supply market upside down. Among the so-called “energy guzzlers”, the companies characterized by the highest energy needs in the country, the water utilities are affected the most. In 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, water service companies had an energy expenditure of 300 million euros, which rose exponentially to 800 million euros in 2023, with an estimated decrease to 600 million for 2024. These are some of the evidences presented by Marco Carta, CEO of Agici Corporate Finance, during seminar “Energy efficiency of the integrated water service. Reflections on the environment, tariff and opportunities”, held today at the Tecnopolo of Reggio Emilia, organized by Garc Ambiente SpA and REI Foundation. An opportunity to explore the strategic importance of energy efficiency for integrated water service managers, with direct impacts on the quality of the service, the environment and the citizens, users of this essential service.
“The Italian utilities that operate in the water sector – he commented Paper – use over 6 TWh of energy every year, a consumption that exceeds the annual consumption of all trains on the Peninsula. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which has been ongoing for two years now, has upset the business logic of these operators who, despite the numerous interventions by national and European institutions to control prices, have seen the cost of energy soar: from 300 million of euros in 2019 to 800 million euros in 2023, with a forecast of 600 for 2024. Overall, in the period 2020 – 2024, the cost of energy for water utilities was equal to 2.8 billion euros, the equivalent of how much all operators invest in a year. To further reduce the cost of energy and free up financial resources useful for developing the country’s water networks, the key will be the development of renewables, immune to the price volatility of the energy markets: to do this, however, it is essential to remove limits and moratoriums in order to streamline the authorization processes in this regard, which today represent over 20% of the investment cost”.
(Photo: © Andrii Yalanskyi | 123RF)