Physical energy flows (Pefa)

On 23rd January 2025, Istat releases on its data warehouse (theme ‘National Accounts’, sub-theme ‘Environmental Accounts’, section ‘Physical Energy Flow Accounts (PEFA)’) the time series 2008-2022 on Physical Energy Flow Accounts (Pefa) of the Italian economy, expressed in terajoules (tj).

In the 2024 edition, the time series of the Physical Energy Flows Accounts was revised due to innovations and improvements in methods and data sources; data are also consistent with the general revision of national accounts carried out in September 2024, in coordination with other European countries, ten years after the adoption of the new European System of Accounts (ESA 2010). To date the time series is available from 2008 onwards. Previously released time series are available in the sections “National accounts – 2014 version” and “National accounts – 2019 version” of this same site.

In this edition, the energy flow estimates for the year 2022 are released ex novo and those for the years 2008-2021 are updated. Similarly, for the indicators ‘energy intensity of value added’ and ‘CO2 emission intensity of energy consumption’ the whole time series 2008-2021 is updated and the data for 2022 are added.

Pefa allows analyzing in detail the energy metabolism of the socio-economic system and the interactions between natural system and anthropic system regarding supply, transformation and use of energy. It provides a complete representation (consistent with the system of national economic accounts) of energy flowing from environment to economy, within the economy and from economy to environment, distinguishing natural energy input, energy products and energy residues. For each energy flow, origin (supply) and destination (demand) are recorded, distinct for economic activities, households, accumulation,  rest of the world and environment, using a matrix scheme based on the structure of  Supply-Use tables of monetary National accounts.

In 2022, the energy flowing into the national economy amounted is about 8.2 million terajoules (+3.4% compared to the previous year), of which 83.4% is made up of imports of energy products (which increase by 5.7% compared to 2021) and 16.6% is made up of by energy withdrawals from the Italian natural environment (-6.8%). On the other hand, the energy flowing out the national economic system in 2022 is about 7.9 million terajoules (fairly stable compared to the previous year), of which 19.6% is in the form of exports of energy products (+10.1%) and 80.4% is returned to the natural environment in the form of degraded and no longer usable energy (-1.7%). The difference between energy flows into and out of the national economy indicates that the net energy accumulation in the economic system is about 0.3 million terajoules in 2022.

The total energy consumption of resident units (Net domestic energy use – NDEU) in 2022 was 6.5 million terajoules (3.1% less than in 2021):

• 33.1% is accounted for by households (which reduced their energy consumption by 3.2% compared to the previous year) and the rest by production activities (-3.1%);
• 3.3% is used for non-energy purposes (NDEU_non energy): this is energy used to produce non-energy products (polymers, bitumen, etc.) or to lubricate gears;
• 19.0% comes from renewable energy sources (-2.6% compared to 2021), but only 15.1% can be considered as ‘modern’ renewable consumption (that excludes the traditional biomass use, i.e. the inefficient use of wood, charcoal and other organic matter by households for heating and cooking purposes); considering only consumption for energy purposes (NDEU_energy) these percentages rise to 19.7% and 15.6% respectively;
• 84.4% is air emission-relevant as it is carried out by combustion (-1.3% compared to 2021).

Pefa data are – by construction – comparable with economic data of National Accounts and with other environmental accounts, resulting particularly suitable to using in integrated environmental and economic analysis. In 2022:

• the ‘Energy intensity of GDP’ (ratio of NDEU to GDP) decreases by 7.4% compared to 2021, reaching 3.4 terajoules per million euro of GDP (chain-linked values with reference year 2020);
• the ‘Energy intensity of value added’ (ratio of NDEU_energy to value added), calculated with reference to all productive activities, is 2.4 terajoules per million euro of value added (chain-linked values with reference year 2020), 5.7% less than in the previous year, with significant differences between individual productive activities in terms of both in the sign and in the value of the annual change;
• the ‘CO2 emission intensity of energy consumption’ (ratio of CO2 emissions to NDEU_energy) registers an increase compared to 2021 of 2.7% for the whole economy, 2.4% for households and 2.6% for total productive activities (with very different variations for individual activities).

For more information, please refer to the metadata.

For information

Directorate for national accounts

Giusy Vetrella
tel. +39 06 4673 3236
vetrella@istat.it

Silvia Zannoni
tel. +39 06 4673 3109
zannoni@istat.it