(Finance) – About 10 billion m3 of methane gas were saved in Italy in eight months (August 2022 – March 2023), equal to 18% less than the average consumption of the same period in the last 5 years. This is what ENEA calculated, which also highlighted a slightly higher reduction in consumption in Italy than the EU average (-17.7%) explaining that this is a saving that exceeds by about 20% (about 2 billion m3) the reduction of 8.2 billion m3 set by the national plan for the containment of natural gas consumption.
In addition to maximizing thermoelectric production with fuels other than gas, the National Plan for the containment of natural gas consumption has established the application of certain measures to limit energy consumption for the residential and tertiary sectors. Among these, it has envisaged some administrative measures to contain heating (temperature limits in the rooms, daily hours of ignition and duration of the heating period, according to the climatic zones into which the Italian territory is divided) and a series of measures behavioral measures promoted with an awareness campaign carried out by ENEA and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.
“Through this set of administrative and behavioral actions, to which ENEA has strongly contributed, we have managed not only to achieve the objective set by the Plan but to save 20% more gas”, he comments Nicolandrea Calabrese, head of the ENEA Laboratory of Energy Efficiency in Buildings and Urban Development and author of the study together with Francesca Caffari. “The mild temperatures of the winter season and the drastic containment measures adopted above all by the energy-intensive industry also contributed to this result”.
Overall, all EU countries exceeded the targets set: in the period January 2022 – March 2023, gas consumption was constantly lower than the 2017-2022 average for the period. Between January and July 2022, natural gas consumption in the EU decreased even ahead of the 15% gas reduction target set by the European Council[3]. However, the greatest decreases were recorded in the second half of 2022, starting with the 14% reduction in consumption in August (-14.3% in September, -24.4% in October, -25% in November and -12 .3% in December). In 2023 consumption fell by 19% in January, by 14.7% in February and by 17.1%. in March.