Because hydroelectricity leaves Italy dry
In July and – according to preliminary data from Terna – in August the production of energy from hydroelectricity decreased sharply in Italy. The fault lies with the drought
Data from Terna , the company that manages the Italian electricity transmission grid, indicate that 31.1 billion kilowatt hours of electricity were consumed in our country in July, 2.2 per cent more than the same month of 2021.
THE NET DECREASE IN HYDROELECTRIC
Almost 85 per cent of the need was met with national energy production; specifically, renewable sources covered 31.7 per cent of demand.
If solar photovoltaics, however, experienced a growth of 19.7 percent on an annual basis, wind power and above all hydroelectricity dropped significantly: 27.2 and 32.1 percent less, respectively.
THE PRELIMINARY DATA OF AUGUST
Preliminary data for August show an even more significant decrease in hydroelectric power compared to the previous year: about -42 percent. More generally, the contribution from renewables was 18 percent lower than in August 2021.
THE HYDROELECTRIC POWER STATIONS IN ITALY
In Italy there are approximately 4,700 hydroelectric plants, mainly concentrated in Piedmont (1041), Trentino Alto-Adige (870), Lombardy (730) and Veneto (402). On the other hand, they are not very common in the South, also for reasons of conformation of the territory: in Puglia, for example, there are just ten of them, for 4 megawatts of power. The more than seven hundred Lombard plants, on the other hand, have a total power of 5685 MW.
THE DROUGHT
The poor energy generation from hydroelectric power in the summer months can be traced back above all to the drought, which mainly affected the Po area: due to the heat and the lack of rain, the water level of the river – Terna itself recalls – has reached some points the historical lows.
On 4 July the Council of Ministers declared a state of emergency due to water shortages in the regions of the Po district basins and the eastern Alps: Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Emilia-Romagna. They are all important provinces – especially the three already mentioned – for hydroelectric production, but the drought has affected the whole of Italy. Less water availability implies fewer possibilities of energy generation.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/idroelettrico-siccita-terna/ on Sun, 25 Sep 2022 07:20:40 +0000.