Energy: Italy at the top in Europe with 15 thousand energy diagnoses of enterprises

With over 15 thousand energy diagnoses performed in over 8 thousand enterprises, Italy ranks at the top in Europe for countries achieving greater compliance to the EU Energy Efficiency Directive on  energy audits in enterprises.

In the rest of Europe, in fact, 13 thousand were sent, of which 7 thousand were statements of completed diagnoses. The data, released by ENEA, regards energy–intensive and large-sized enterprises required to undergo an energy audit. In our Country, by the legal deadline of December 2015 14,342 diagnoses from 7,516 companies were sent, rising later to 8,461 with 15,685 diagnoses by the end of June 2016.

“These results are destined to further improve as a result of verification and control actions started by the Ministry of the Economic Development with the support of ENEA, in its role as National Energy Efficiency Agency”, Roberto Moneta, Head of the ENEA Energy Efficiency Technical Unit, explained. “ Also in the recent Concerted Action meeting  on the implementation of Directive 2012/27/EU, the Italian approach and the results obtained have stirred much interest and a positive evaluation by the European Commission”, Moneta went on.

The reason for the success of the Italian model originates from some best practices which Brussels appears to want to indicate in the next review of the energy efficiency Directive, particularly the creation of Permanent Technical Tables as an opportunity for defining operational procedures shared with the interested parties for the implementation of the most complex aspects of the Directive.

The work conducted by the Technical Tables has resulted in implementing provisions issued by the MISE. Standardized accountability systems for operators and energy data elaboration, development of sectoral guidelines to provide enterprises with useful information to fulfill their legal obligation and the development of a specific procedure for multisite companies, also proved effective.[1].

“These initiatives, shared with Confindustria and the other interested parties, will continue along with the activities ENEA is conducting in support to the MISE, with the objective of fostering a dialogue among the interested parties through information and training activities, conferences and seminars,  drawing of technical documents and sectoral studies with the professional associations” Moneta concluded. As regards energy efficiency, Italy has progressed towards a primary energy reduction target of 20 Mtep/year by 2020, equal to 15.5 Mtep of final energy

Overall, as of today, Italy has saved almost 10 Mtep/ year, avoiding 26 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions and an expenditure of 3 billion euro to import fossil sources. Our Country is leader in Europe for energy intensity, with a value 18%  inferior to the EU average; among the tools promoting energy efficiency that proved particularly effective are the white certificates, tax incentives for energy upgrading and the measures provided for by dlgs 102/2014 and the Action Plan for Energy Efficiency 2014.

For more information log on to: www.efficienzaenergetica.enea.it/per-le-imprese

[1] Energy audits are performed on a representative and characterized group of sites