When the energy crisis teaches us to change habits.

Column by Francesco Grillo published on the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.

It is not entirely true that COVID19 has been the first massive interference of the State on citizens’ freedom movement. In November 1973, European governments imposed draconian measures: during weekends nobody could use a car and it was pointed out that the fines - including the seizure of the car - would have hit even non-complying Ministers.

The memory of that “austerity” recalls the upcoming autumn also in the causes that triggered that crisis: Israel, attacked by an alliance that brought together all its Arab neighbours, reacted by occupying the Sinai and the Golan; the countermove was the blockade of oil supplies to the West which brought to out-of-control inflation and the first recession after years of economic miracles.

How important can savings be - today, after half a century - as a lever to respond to the energy crisis?

The plan presented by the European Union, immediately before and immediately after Summer, seems to rely on automatisms which are difficult to control and on communication actions. The risk is to lose the opportunity to transform the emergency in the occasion to conceive a concrete strategy.

In Italy, for instance, the Ministry that should accompany the ecological transition (MITE) launched, in early September, a plan to contain gas consumption that must respond to the brutal cut that war involves: Russia, in 2021, covered about 40% of the final consumption of gas in Italy (29 billion cubic meters standard - SMC - out of 76). The plan envisages that half of the Russian imports are going to be replaced - within 2023 - by supplies from other Countries (above all from Algeria) and that for another 15% they are going to be replaced by internal production of gas and other fossil fuels. Less appears to be the confidence of the government that renewable energy can make an immediate contribution (it is expected that they can provide the equivalent of about 2 billion cubic meters of gas more by next year). And, finally, the focus is on saving 3.3 billion on gas through three mandatory reductions in heating: the temperature of a degree in buildings; the duration of daily ignition of an hour; and the annual period of operation of the plants fifteen days.

The plan is in line with the European regulation adopted by the European Council at the end of July on the Union’s energy security, which, however, presents at least three problems (even without considering the insufficient ambition for renewables).

The first problem is that the plan does not eliminate entirely the gap between supply and demand that a reset of Russian supplies would open and that, however, would be realized (by 2023) not in time to avert the emergency by next winter.

The second problem is that is a missed opportunity to adopt a comprehensive strategy of energy savings: the title itself speaks of reducing the consumption of gas only (it is urgent to cut oil consumption too) and, moreover, the measures are reduced, further, if we talk only of heating gas, leaving aside that gas is consumed to a greater extent for electricity deliver.

The third and greater issue is that there is a missing chance to create incentives to consumption containment which should reward the innovation that saving requires and that the crisis can strongly stimulate. Actually, as shown by the graph that accompanies the article, it is not true that to grow you need to consume more energy.

The price we pay today per cubic meter of gas or per kilowatt of electricity (or, even, per litre of water) do not change as much as consumption. This happens because of the "protected" market - controlled by the regulatory agency ARERA - but it also happens in the free market that is replacing it. Also, cost differentiations to heat an empty house are reduced (waste is worth a third of the bills) compared to those, for example, of an office at full capacity. In this situation, the rationalizations end up being entirely entrusted to mandatory containment measures (even if there are doubts about how to control the temperature of the houses) or, on the contrary, mildly entrusted to communication campaigns.

Instead, saving must become a strategic lever capable of affecting the entire consumption of fossil energy. And it must pass through the market.

Production technology and distribution of energy – realized mainly by photovoltaic and new transmission technologies (DERS) – allow to differentiate the price according to transition targets. Without, however, arriving at a more sensible use of prices as a signal that guides everyone - families and large energy-intensive factories - towards new frontiers of innovation, it would make sense to begin to encourage the introduction of bills that reward those who save compared to what they consumed in the past and penalize those who do not change habits. No less effective would be to involve municipalities in an action to mobilize their local communities: mayors who demonstrate, in a measurable way, to be at the forefront of what is a decisive battle (where, the PNRR fails to make this distinction) should be supported - with further investment.

In 1973, the cars bans were accompanied by a movement that made Italians discover the possibility of cutting unnecessary consumption and the beginning of a wave of innovations that, still, we call "home automation". Saving on energy consumption can not only be the answer to an emergency. Waiting for the next crisis. Indeed, we have a moral duty to use the only positive aspect of the crisis: to review production and consumption models that take our future without, even, creating advantages for those who waste languidly.