Case Italy: our country could easily (and quickly) replace gas with renewables

“Towards a dramatic reduction in the European Natural Gas consumption: Italy as a case study” is the study, published in the Journal of Cleaner Productionwhich he took our country for exampleanalyzing the choices made by the Government in recent months, also thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the uncertainty, social tension and the gas has become the new gold, with price increases of more than 300% since May 2021.

According to the analysis, the A more economically viable strategy would be to move rapidly towards clean energyrather than diversify energy sources from fossil fuelsmaking agreements with North African countries or creating regasification plants to import liquefied natural gas from other countries.

The article, making use of mathematical simulations, shows how the gas consumption in Italy could be reduced, within one or two years, increasing investment in renewable sector to expand the installed base and improve it also from an efficiency point of view, by replacing older and less efficient equipment. “Decarbonisation is cheaper than diversification”says the lead author, Lorenzo Mario Shepherdof the Department of Astronautical, Electrical and Energy Engineering of the Sapienza University of Rome.

To flesh out the study’s conclusions, Pastore and his colleagues took advantage of a widely used computer tool for the analysis and configuration of future renewable energy systems, obtaining more of 2,000 scenarios based on different energy mixes, investments in renewable technologies and natural gas prices.

In particular, they considered the addition of solar panels up to 10 GW and 5 GW for utility and residential installations respectively, wind farms up to 10 GW and a 15% increase in the share of buildings using heat pumps. Each scenario includes simulations of the energy consumption, energy costs and employment impact of installing new renewable energy.

According to the research, a minimum investment of 20 billion euros on renewables to reduce gas consumption by almost 40 TWhwith a “cost of abatement” (the indicator that allows an immediate assessment of the economic benefits) of 45 euro/MWh.

Increasing the figure to just under 80 billion euros – which would be the maximum investment – the need for natural gas would be reduced by 75 Twh/year, with an average abatement cost of around €70/MWh.

Also it would have an important impact on employment, with the creation of 640,000 fixed-term jobs and 30,000 permanent jobs, together with a reduction in CO2 emissions of 21.5 Mt/year.

Finally, if the maximum investment policy were implemented, the case where future average natural gas spot prices were higher than €50/MWh would reduce decarbonisation costs to less than €80/tCO2.

Unfortunately, the current government is taking the opposite direction, promoting drilling in the Adriatic and the opening of regasification plantswhich can lead – paradoxically – to an increase in the use of fossil fuelsin stark contrast to what is unanimously recognized as necessary to keep the temperature of the planet below 1.5°C.

Pastore’s article underlines how i large investments in gas plants and infrastructure they could become “blocked assets”creating a “barrier for the transition process towards renewables and sustainable energy systems”.

New gas pipelines and regasification plants, the authors write, represent “a long-term investment that contradicts the need for rapid decarbonisation of energy systems” and they can “taking capital out of green investments”.

In conclusion, Pastore states that delaying decarbonisation due to the energy crisis and inflation is a missed opportunitynot only from an economic point of view.