A dramatic cascade effect, which progressively affects the other basic necessities as well. The energy crisis thus also comes to water, to that water sector which in Italy is already experiencing a complicated season due to the investments to be made in purification, pipes and now also in civic storage infrastructures aimed at overcoming the drought, for an amount of 12.4 billion.
Now, however, the planning of the works planned for the next few years is strongly endangered by the increase in electricity costs, which throughout Italy had an increase of 1.2 billion euros (estimate for 2022), on 18 % more than in 2021, when the figure was already much higher than in 2020. In normal times, in fact, electricity would have cost 150-200 million nationally.
Surely a nice contribution to investments will come from the NRR, for an amount of 4.3 billion (2 billion for the new primary water infrastructures in the area; 900 million for the repair and digitization of the networks; 800 million for the improvement of the irrigation system; 600 for waste water purification). But this is still a high figure, even with the support of the Plan.
The accounts that do not add up
The blanket is short: energy costs increase – especially during periods of drought, in which it is necessary to draw water from deep aquifers – but the tariffs applied to household and business bills will not be increased, at least for now. However, the investments should be continued, also because the failure to carry out the works implies the continuation of the European sanctions, which can weigh up to 165 thousand euros per day for each unrealized work (per agglomeration of over 15 thousand inhabitants).
Indicatively, the energy cost has increased tenfold. A concrete example is what is happening in Water Alliance – Acque di Lombardia, the network of 13 managers of the Lombard integrated water service, which had budgeted a total energy expenditure for 2022 of approximately 265 million euros. But on the eve of the fourth quarter, the figure rose to nearly one billion euros.