Italie : February 15, 2008

The first provisional figures on electricity consumption in Italy for 2007 highlight a 0.7 percent increase from 2006. The total electricity demand registered 339.8 billion kWh. The findings were announced by Terna who is responsible for the country’s transmission and distributing sectors.

In 2007, the country recorded a new record for electricity demand on the grid of 56,822 MW. This figure was registered on Tuesday, December 18 at 5:00 pm – a day which was very cold. The old record of 56,589 was recorded the previous year on December 13th.

The amount of electricity consumed in December (normally the highest in any given year) 2007 was 1.2 percent higher than the same month during the prior year. Two factors influenced this result: more working days (19 v 18) and the average monthly temperature was 2.5C degrees lower.

While the analysis by Terna revealed an overall increase nationally, the increases on a regional basis were uneven. In the North, electricity consumption grew by 0.3 percent, in the Central part of the country it grew by 1.5 percent while in the South electricity consumption growth was recorded at 2.8 percent. Of the 28.6 billion kWh consumed in December 2007, 45.2 percent was distributed in the North, 29 percent in the Center and 25.8 percent in the South.