Gas: emergency committee meets tomorrow. How the alert works in Italia

The government's vigilance is high over the new crisis in the Middle East, which has caused a sharp rise in gas prices but which does not seem to have had any particular impact on the security of supply in Italia for the time being, as the Minister for the Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, also explained yesterday during a question time at the Chamber of Deputies. In order to carefully evaluate the latest developments and examine any countermeasures that may be necessary, the Mase holder has in any case convened the Technical Committee for Emergency and Monitoring (Ctem), in which the main operators of the energy chain in Italia take part, for tomorrow.

But what is the Ctem? The permanent technical body was established by a decree of the Ministry of Productive Activities in 2001, which laid down the guidelines for the management of any gas emergencies. Its composition was then revised by a recent decree of the owner of Mase in order to adapt it to the organisational changes that affected the relevant ministry. The Committee is made up of members by right, including the director general of the Energy Markets and Infrastructures Directorate pro tempore of Mase, who acts as chairman, representatives of Arera and those of the companies in the supply chain (gas transport, regasification and storage) and Terna. These are flanked by members who are experts in the field appointed by a separate decree of the Minister.

Tomorrow, therefore, the Committee will draw up an updated balance sheet of the gas situation in Italia. Which, as is known, has an emergency plan set up in 2023, in which three different levels of alert are established (pre-alarm, alarm and emergency) to which correspond precise conditions and relative measures to be adopted. The first of the three levels, the plan states, is triggered, for example, when events occur that are capable of leading to a significant reduction in imports 'in the absence of concrete, serious and reliable information on a rapid return to a situation of normality'. In this case, if the early warning declaration has been made - which must be carried out by the competent authority, the document specifies, after consulting the Committee on the recommendation of the major transport company - the most appropriate market actions are left to the operators, such as the increase in imports using the flexibility of existing contracts, the reduction of gas demand linked to interruptible contracts of a commercial nature, and again, the use of alternative substitute fuels in industrial plants.

The alarm level, the upper step, is triggered, instead, among other cases, when there is a sudden interruption of one of the supply sources and/or in the presence of unfavourable climatic events of exceptional intensity. If one goes to this level, the responses are in any case entrusted to the system operators who must put into practice the most appropriate actions to allow the timely restoration of a condition of normality or at least the return to the pre-alarm level.

The last step, as mentioned, is represented by the level of emergency that can arise, the plan clarifies, in those situations in which, due to the occurrence of particularly exceptional conditions, the system is not able to satisfy the demand for gas and the need arises, on the part of the major transport company, to "continuously use, for the balancing of the transport network, the peak availability of the storage supply or the total quantity of gas that can be supplied by the storage system on a daily basis, in compliance with the technical and management constraints of the system itself".