Darker days ahead for Italy as demand outstrips supply
ANALYSIS
GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN
AS THE lights began to come back on in Italy yesterday, politicians moved swiftly to promise the construction of 20 new power-generating plants in an attempt to forestall criticism of the country’s ailing power network.
With a quarter of domestic electricity production reliant on hydro-electric schemes, Italy has been hit hard by recent periods of sustained drought in southern Europe, resulting in a spate of blackouts over the summer months.
But the power cuts which left most of the country in darkness yesterday are symptomatic of a growing problem not confined to the Italian state. In many parts of the world, generators have been unable to keep pace with the increasing demand for electricity and with the need to spend money on upgrading outdate infrastructure.
* * * *
Demand in the US is said to have grown by 30 per cent in the past ten years, while transmission capacity has grown by just 18 per cent. Electricity companies have been accused of failing to invest in building new power lines capable of transmitting high voltages.
In Italy, where electricity prices are the highest in Europe, the situation is, if anything, worse. Demand has risen from 170,000 gigawatt hours a year 25 years ago to 304,000 GWh, although capacity is only 250,000 GWh.
The rate of power plant construction has failed to keep pace with growing demand, which has been boosted by the rise in the popularity of air-conditioning units and refrigerators.
Privatisation of power generation has not been a success, and the European grid co-ordinator, UCTE, has warned of a looming crisis.
* * * *
Other parts of Europe are also facing problems. France relies heavily on nuclear power, which accounts for about 80 per cent of its output, and the summer heat wave forced the closure of a quarter of the country’s nuclear power stations on safety grounds.
With scientists predicting more hot summers due to global warming, the problem is unlikely to go away. So serious was the situation that France turned to the UK for assistance, importing electricity to cope with the shortfall.
At peak times, France supplies the equivalent of about two nuclear power plants’ worth of electricity to Italy.
* * * *
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/international.cfm?id=1077162003