Now, here's one of the hot topics. The hot topic of the moment is energy. And the hot topic of the moment, energy, is an extremely complicated issue, because the energy issue cannot be tackled simply with slogans, with discounts on excise duties, with shock measures. The first ones who hurry to fill up their tank are entitled to a discount of 9.99, a free trip to San Marino, a Shimano gear change — all nonsense.
The complicated discussion about energy starts from attention, from sharing, from addressing certain geopolitical problems, from what is happening in the world. How much they used to make fun of us when we dealt with Arab countries and they thought we were crazy. We have seen that we were not the crazy ones — it's those who don't deal with it who are crazy. It starts from the question of how utilities work on the territory, it starts from the management of the ability to read the numbers. And so we have on stage with us at Itaca two of the leading energy experts. The first is the chairman of Nomisma Energia, Davide Tabarelli, and then the second is Renato Mazzoncini, Chief Executive Officer of A2A. With them on stage, the great Torino fan, Silvia Fregolent. Go Silvia.
Before lunch, the conclusions of the first part of the morning will be given by the governor of the Emilia-Romagna Region, Michele De Pascale. Right after this panel.
But I still want an ice cream, I need it.
Relax, I'm here just for that. For you Torino fans. This is a given. [laughter]
Thank you. So, Matteo has already given a first picture of the topic, the topic of the century. The topic of the century, because there is no day in which we don't talk about the increase in gas, energy, families that don't make it to the end of the month, companies that struggle to produce in our country also because of high energy costs. But then in 2024 we surpassed Japan in exports, and so it is the Italian miracle of entrepreneurs who, despite bureaucracy, high energy costs and high material costs, manage to be competitive. Here we have on stage today two representatives of a world that is not antithetical, but that speaks — those who produce energy and those who produce.
And so we ask three things. In a hypothetical Renzi Bis government, at this point one of them becomes a minister with us [applause] and therefore must give a solution, since for 4 years solutions have not been given. The first measure they take for energy. I start with my friend Renato Mazzoncini. They are both friends, because otherwise they wouldn't come to the lagoon of the Leopolda, they know they have no protective shield, so you will ask questions and we will ask tough ones. Go.
I have it, I have it. Thank you Silvia. First of all, greetings to everyone. So, I'll try to tell you in 2 minutes exactly what the situation of energy is today. The 70s and 80s: in that period the country developed with oil, substantially until the first energy crisis. At the end of the 70s we realize that oil has excessive volatility, let's call it that. We were all left stranded — I was born in '68, in '76 we used to go around on bicycles on Sundays because there was no petrol. So the country begins to switch to natural gas. We invest, by my calculations, 500 billion euros to distribute gas everywhere, to use it to produce electricity, to heat homes and do a bit of everything. And above all, in that period, Russian gas is introduced with the construction of the great pipelines that brought gas from Russia to Europe. The strategy of Angela Merkel and of a large part of Europe was to rely on the stability of Russian gas: low price, completely stable, dead calm.
What is the result? And we come to 2022, to the war. The result is that if you young people — I imagine many of you don't even use a car because generations are changing — ask your parents how much your car consumes per liter, everyone can answer to the decimal. '15.5, mine does 13' — because after the oil crisis everyone knew. Ask the same person how many cubic meters of gas they consumed this year, they can't tell you how many cubic meters of water, how many kilowatt-hours — nobody has even the order of magnitude, not even one in a hundred thousand. And in this period of crisis with bills, you ask most people: 'Do you have a fixed-price or a variable-price contract?' They can't answer even this trivial question. Why? Because the commodities — gas, electricity, water and others — were so cheap for 20 years that it's as if we had been anesthetized by Russian gas, and this produced an enormous awareness problem. So the first problem, the first measure would be to make people a bit more aware.
What happened in 2022? You can see it in this chart. First the war: the price of energy, which was typically stable, goes crazy. It goes crazy for geopolitical reasons, as Matteo anticipated earlier. We were calm for a couple of years, so to speak, but with prices much higher than we used to have, and then the second crisis — Ormuts — by now, let's say, after two crises in 4 years. What is happening now? What is happening is that the only instrument we have today to structurally propose more stable energy is renewables, for the very simple reason that right now in Italy the only domestic sources of energy we have are water, hydroelectric, wind and solar, the sun, and waste — the waste-to-energy plants, which by the way here in Tuscany don't seem to be doing very well. Okay? This is to say that if we develop them we can achieve what you see in this chart.
Do you see the blue line? The blue line is the price of energy that companies like mine, A2A, offer to companies or even to citizens for 10 years, 20 years, because they detach themselves from the geopolitics of fossil fuels. And do you see the difference? The light blue line is the wholesale price of energy, the one always talked about when they say that energy in Italy is expensive, and the one below is the blue one. So, I believe that what needs to be done at this moment, while waiting for nuclear or other technologies, is to push on renewables, on grids, on batteries, in order to achieve at least this first goal.
Good. Now I ask — you were presented as Nomisma Energia, but you have dealt with Acea Italia and not only, so the part, let's say, of production, that of the polluting industry, as it used to be called, to relaunch our productivity. I also ask you, obviously, the first measure you would take.
Well, I start from the fact that we have been in an energy emergency for 5 years now, so if you appoint me today I have to worry about next winter. Next winter we have low gas reserves, we have prices rising, we have a problem with bills for the poor, which yesterday the authority said is the maximum, 1.67 per cubic meter. So I take emergency measures: I reopen two coal plants — which is the opposite of what A2A says. By the way, A2A had a beautiful plant in Carbonia that it closed, and Monfalcone. So, thinking about those poor people — and I say this especially to the young people who are always, when it comes to Italy and the fairy tales, enchanted by the sirens of the easy transition — I tell you that this winter, if we have a calm winter, we will owe it to the old, ugly, bad coal. Why? Because if China does not import LNG from the United States, prices stay more or less like this. If it starts to resume imports because Qatar, which is in the Persian Gulf, is missing, then prices shoot up and bills will go through the roof. China, as always, uses a lot of coal, and that is what we need.
Electricity in the world — welcome to producing it with renewables, it's beautiful. We don't need environmentalism to teach us that. We developed it with the lakes that A2A has, Super Canco, our entire Alpine arc. It's an energy that, however, produces electricity. Right now we also need oil. The old refineries are making scandalous profits. Near Livorno there is the one in Livorno and in Stagno, the Anic that we closed a few weeks ago to make biofuels, which is another green invention that does something. So, we are in a moment of crisis also of policies, in the sense that we Europeans must straighten out a bit the headlong rush that was towards renewables and green — which obviously must be shared and thought about — and think more about competitiveness and security, in which we are far behind and extremely exposed, starting from the vulnerable Mrs. Maria this winter, up to our companies that cannot compete with abroad.
Anyway, sorry Silvia, on companies — Italy is the fourth exporting country in the world after China, no, the United States, China and Germany, so, how to say, we're doing pretty well, 640 billion in fact.
How much better would we be if, in the 100-meter race against China and the United States — to whom we have even put a small reactor under their sneakers to make them go faster — we didn't put 100 kg weights on our entrepreneurs and then we expect them to arrive first and win the Olympics? Because what you say is true, but think how much more competitive and skilled they would have to be.
It's one component, but it was coming to mind earlier with your question that perhaps the most urgent thing of all right now is to take care of the vulnerable.
Bravo. That's why in 2022, let's say it, because they are not vulnerable — because among you here, are there any vulnerable ones? [laughter] Certainly. Just think that all those over 75 are automatically vulnerable.
Vulnerable. So it's the rule that provides that for the brackets over 75 years of age, and not only in other categories of weak subjects, one should have a lighter and cheaper bill, and instead it's not like that because... instead it happens that the vulnerable people who are, let's say, protected by this rule — it's called the protected market — are on a variable price. The variable price is the light blue one you see. In 2022 there were 12 million vulnerable people. Fortunately now there are 3 million, also thanks to those very few parties, including those represented in this context, who pushed to move towards the free market, because the free market allows you to have fixed-price contracts, or rather, allows you to choose what you want to have, whether fixed or variable price. The paradox of today's situation is actually that we find ourselves with vulnerable people who, most of them probably without realizing it, will once again be the ones who pay the highest price for this Ormuts crisis, and therefore they must absolutely be advised to escape as quickly as possible from that regime in order to capture the fixed prices that today are absolutely lower, both for gas and for electricity.
So, I tell the guys to prepare two questions and so start thinking. No, no, no questions. Nothing. Instead, Davide, you were rightly talking about our country's capacity to produce, but we are in a phase — I say this as a Turin native — of deindustrialization in some sectors. Why should Europe return to compete industrially? What must happen?
The strength of deindustrialization in Europe is unfortunately unstoppable, and the meager consolation is that Germany is worse off than us. It's the energy-intensive industries that are suffering: steel mills, cement plants, glassworks. Then, as we said before, exports of those who have a small component — 3% of their cost structure made up of energy — can do very well. On the contrary, we can see that the high price of energy is an incentive to be more efficient. That said, I repeat, we have a problem, for example, with refineries right now. Margins are very high, diesel is missing. Yesterday there was a sort of war already with Trump — he threatened us and Macron dropped his pants and said yes, we'll sell you all the diesel we have. I ask here nearby if there's anyone from Calenzano who has some diesel to make Trump happy at the old depot where the accident happened. We close everything because safety regulations impose it on us. But guys, the old industry is also needed. If steel is strategic, if chemicals are strategic, do we leave it to China, to the Middle East? What we did with diesel, let the Middle East do it with diesel. Then if Ormuts closes, it's a problem. So we need to talk a bit about...
So, the last question is on a topic I know is close and dear to all of us: nuclear. We abstained on that law because we are in favor of nuclear, we are not in favor of propaganda and spot rules that won't build even one plant. To you instead the judgment — different ideas, Mazzoncini will surprise you now. And tell us why.
So, I tell you, I'll show you just this slide. See? This here is the GDP of our country without the PNRR. Without the PNRR, from 2025 we will be in recession of 0.6%, in 2026 of 1.4%.
