Physical energy flows (Pefa) - Years 2008-2024

On May 6 2026, Istat updated its data warehouse – ‘National Accounts’ theme, ‘Environmental Accounts’ sub-theme, ‘Physical Energy Flow Accounts (PEFA)’ section – with the 2008-2024 time series for the Physical Energy Flow Accounts (PEFA) for the Italian economy, expressed in terajoules (tj).

PEFA allows analyzing the interactions between natural system and anthropic system by providing 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.

This edition updates estimates of energy flows for the years 2008–2023 and add ex novo those for the year 2024. In coherence with the most recent data from PEFA, Air Emissions Inventory (AEA), and Value Added, the time series for the indicators “Energy intensity of value added” and “CO2 emission intensity of energy consumption” have also been updated.

In 2024, the energy flowing into the national economy amounted is about 7.4 million terajoules (-3.1% compared to 2023), of which 18.0% is made up of by energy withdrawals from the Italian natural environment (+5.6%) and 81.0% of imports of energy products (-4.9%). The energy flowing out the national economic system is about 7.3 million terajoules (-3.2%), of which 19.2% is in the form of exports of energy products (-11.6%) and 80.8% is returned to the natural environment in the form of degraded and no longer usable energy (-1.0%). This last item (energy residues released into the environment) represents the energy dissipated and dispersed by resident units (households and industries) for the functioning of the Italian economic system and is also known as “Net domestic energy use for energy purposes” (NDEU_energy), the indicator used to calculate “Energy intensity of value added” and “CO2 emission intensity of energy consumption.”

The net energy accumulation in the economic system, measured as the difference between the energy flowing into and out of the national economy, is approximately 0.1 million terajoules. This aggregate can also be calculated by adding, in energy terms, the ‘stock changes of energy products’ (accumulated for use in another period) plus the ‘energy products used for non-energy purposes’ (to produce non-energy products such as plastic, bitumen, chemicals, etc., or to lubricate gears) minus ‘non-energy products used for energy purposes’ (e.g., incinerated waste used to produce electricity and heat, or chemicals used to produce gas).

The non-energy use of energy products, also colled ‘”Net domestic energy use for non-energy purposes” (NDEU_non energy), contributes together with NDEU_energy to determining the total energy consumption of resident units (NDEU: Net domestic energy use), which is  the main indicator derivable from PEFA.

The NDEU in 2024 amounts to 6.3 million terajoules (-0.5% compared to 2023). Of this consumption:

• 33.2% is accounted for by households (for own-account transportation, heating and cooling, hot water and cooking, lighting and appliances), and the remainder by production activities. Compared to 2023, energy consumption increased by 2.8% in households, both for domestic uses (+0.8%) and for own-account transport (+5.1%), while it decreased by 2.1% in production activities;
• 20.3% comes from renewable energy sources (+5.9% compared to 2023);
• 3.8% is for non-energy purposes (NDEU_non energy);
• 80.4% is air emission-relevant as it is carried out by combustion (-2.5% compared to 2023).

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 2024:

• the ‘Energy intensity of GDP’ (ratio of NDEU to GDP) decreases by 1.3% compared to 2023, reaching 3.2 terajoules per million euro of GDP;
• the ‘Energy intensity of value added’ (ratio of NDEU_energy to value added), calculated with reference to total production activities, is 2.2 terajoules per million euro of value added, 3.4% less than the previous year, with significant differences between individual production activities (-7.3% for Agriculture, -3.4% for Industry, and -2.9% for Services);
• the ‘CO2 emission intensity of energy consumption’ (ratio of CO2 emissions to NDEU_energy) decreases by 1.3% compared to 2023 for the whole economy (settling at 53.7 tonnes of CO2 per terajoule of energy consumption) and by 2.0% for total production activities (56.1 t.CO2/Tj in 2024, with very different annual variations for individual activities both in sign and value: -2.2% for Agriculture, -3.6% for Industry and +2.2% for Services), while it increases by 0.8% for households (49.1 t.CO2/Tj).

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