The economic crisis which has hit the western economies has had a severe impact on Italy as well. In the present historical circumstances, sustainable growth is the main objective of the Government and the Country; it can only be achieved by improving significantly the competitiveness of the production system. Among the main factors which can improve Italy’s competitiveness vis-à-vis international competition, the energy sector plays a key role, despite being affected by several structural weaknesses. Firstly, Italy’s energy prices are on an average higher than those of its European competitors; the difference is even greater when compared with other countries such as the United States. There are several reasons for this. The energy mix, in particular for electricity generation, relies heavily on gas - whose prices have only recently started to align themselves with those of the European markets - in marked contrast with the EU average, where nuclear and coal are major sources. Other factors pushing up the final price of electricity in Italy are the incentives to electricity production from renewable sources and other costs stemming from public policies supported by the tariffs (costs of dismantling nuclear power plants, system research, special tariff schemes) and support for certain types of production and certain user categories. Secondly, Italy’s situation with regards to security of supply and energy independence is rather dire. In 2012, 82% of Italy’s energy demand (163.2 Mtoe, -5% compared to 2011, source: EUROSTAT ) was covered by net imports, with the national production of renewables, gas and crude oil accounting respectively for just 11.1%, 4.3% and 3.5% of national demand Italy’s energy imports are substantially higher than the EU-28 average net imports, which are about 55%. This dependency on imports has a strong macro-economic impact on Italy, which in 2012 spent EUR 57.9 billion in oil and gas imports. Thus our survey has as aim to help the diffusion of energy efficiency through setup a new index, to evaluate economic feasibility of these kind of project, which permit to show the profitability of EE investment. Furthermore to reach this aim we will propose a new methodology to evaluate energy efficiency project which it will permits an easier way to show the economic feasibility of these kind of project. The energy efficiency has a high relevance in each industrial sector of all states which have a high energy dependence similar to our country. In order to maintain a great level of competitiveness on worldwide level Italian firms have to improve their costs structure. We interviewed a lot of energy manager from energy intensive firms and thanks to their opinion we understood criticality and needs of their firms and they have confirmed our thesis about uselessness of traditional economics methods to evaluate the economic feasibility of EE investment. Eventually, if we had evaluated many technology solutions through the pay-back time we would have lost opportunities that our new index showed economically feasible instead.
La crisi economica che ha colpito le economie occidentali ha avuto un grave impatto sull'Italia. Nelle attuali circostanze storiche, una crescita sostenibile è l'obiettivo principale del governo e del Paese; può essere raggiunto soltanto migliorando significativamente la competitività del sistema produttivo. Tra i principali fattori che possono migliorare la competitività nei confronti della concorrenza internazionale in Italia, il settore energetico riveste un ruolo fondamentale, pur risentendo di diverse debolezze strutturali. In primo luogo, i prezzi dell'energia in Italia sono in media più alti di quelli dei suoi concorrenti europei; la differenza è ancora maggiore se confrontato con altri paesi, come gli Stati Uniti. Ci sono diverse ragioni per questo. Il mix energetico, in particolare per la produzione di energia elettrica, si basa molto sul gas - i cui prezzi hanno iniziato solo di recente ad allinearsi con quelli dei mercati europei - in netto contrasto con la media europea, dove nucleare e il carbone sono fonti importanti. Altri fattori che spingono il prezzo finale dell'energia elettrica in Italia sono gli incentivi alla produzione di energia elettrica da fonti rinnovabili e altri costi derivanti da politiche pubbliche sostenute dalle tariffe (costi di smantellamento centrali nucleari, ricerca di sistema, regimi tariffari speciali) e il supporto per alcuni tipi di produzione e di alcune categorie di utenti. In secondo luogo, la situazione in Italia per quanto riguarda la sicurezza degli approvvigionamenti e l'indipendenza energetica è piuttosto disastrosa. Nel 2012, l'82% della domanda di energia in Italia (163,2 Mtep, -5% rispetto al 2011, fonte: Eurostat) è stata coperta dalle importazioni nette, con la produzione nazionale delle rinnovabili, gas e petrolio greggio rappresentano rispettivamente solo per 11,1%, 4,3% e il 3,5% delle importazioni di energia fabbisogno nazionale in Italia sono sostanzialmente superiori ai UE-28 media delle importazioni nette, che sono circa il 55%. Questa dipendenza dalle importazioni ha un forte impatto macroeconomico in Italia, che nel 2012 ha speso 57,9 miliardi di euro in importazioni di petrolio e di gas. Così la nostra indagine ha come obiettivo di aiutare la diffusione dell'efficienza energetica attraverso l'installazione di un nuovo indice, per valutare la fattibilità economica di questo tipo di progetto, che permettono di dimostrare la redditività degli investimenti E.E. Inoltre, per raggiungere questo obiettivo vi proporremo una nuova metodologia per la valutazione del progetto di efficienza energetica che lo farà permette un modo più semplice per dimostrare la fattibilità economica di questo tipo di progetto. L'efficienza energetica ha un grande rilevanza in ogni settore industriale di tutti gli Stati che hanno una dipendenza alta energia simile al nostro paese. Al fine di mantenere un elevato livello di competitività a livello mondiale le imprese italiane devono migliorare la propria struttura dei costi. Abbiamo intervistato un ampio campione di energy manager di imprese ad alta intensità energetica e, grazie al loro parere abbiamo compreso le criticità e bisogni delle loro imprese e hanno confermato la nostra tesi sulla non esaustiva valutazione dei metodi tradizionali di economia per valutare la fattibilità economica degli investimenti EE. Alla fine, se avessimo valutato molte soluzioni tecnologiche attraverso il tempo di pay-back avremmo perso occasioni di investimento che il nostro nuovo indice ha mostrato economicamente fattibili.
The economic evaluation of energy efficiency in industry : an innovative methodology
CAVALLARO, DAMIANO
2013/2014
Abstract
The economic crisis which has hit the western economies has had a severe impact on Italy as well. In the present historical circumstances, sustainable growth is the main objective of the Government and the Country; it can only be achieved by improving significantly the competitiveness of the production system. Among the main factors which can improve Italy’s competitiveness vis-à-vis international competition, the energy sector plays a key role, despite being affected by several structural weaknesses. Firstly, Italy’s energy prices are on an average higher than those of its European competitors; the difference is even greater when compared with other countries such as the United States. There are several reasons for this. The energy mix, in particular for electricity generation, relies heavily on gas - whose prices have only recently started to align themselves with those of the European markets - in marked contrast with the EU average, where nuclear and coal are major sources. Other factors pushing up the final price of electricity in Italy are the incentives to electricity production from renewable sources and other costs stemming from public policies supported by the tariffs (costs of dismantling nuclear power plants, system research, special tariff schemes) and support for certain types of production and certain user categories. Secondly, Italy’s situation with regards to security of supply and energy independence is rather dire. In 2012, 82% of Italy’s energy demand (163.2 Mtoe, -5% compared to 2011, source: EUROSTAT ) was covered by net imports, with the national production of renewables, gas and crude oil accounting respectively for just 11.1%, 4.3% and 3.5% of national demand Italy’s energy imports are substantially higher than the EU-28 average net imports, which are about 55%. This dependency on imports has a strong macro-economic impact on Italy, which in 2012 spent EUR 57.9 billion in oil and gas imports. Thus our survey has as aim to help the diffusion of energy efficiency through setup a new index, to evaluate economic feasibility of these kind of project, which permit to show the profitability of EE investment. Furthermore to reach this aim we will propose a new methodology to evaluate energy efficiency project which it will permits an easier way to show the economic feasibility of these kind of project. The energy efficiency has a high relevance in each industrial sector of all states which have a high energy dependence similar to our country. In order to maintain a great level of competitiveness on worldwide level Italian firms have to improve their costs structure. We interviewed a lot of energy manager from energy intensive firms and thanks to their opinion we understood criticality and needs of their firms and they have confirmed our thesis about uselessness of traditional economics methods to evaluate the economic feasibility of EE investment. Eventually, if we had evaluated many technology solutions through the pay-back time we would have lost opportunities that our new index showed economically feasible instead.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/107935