Italian electricity emission factors (ISPRA): production, consumption and grid losses

If your company uses electricity in Italy, the national emission factors published by ISPRA (the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) are the usual starting point for location-based Scope 2. ISPRA's workbook contains several factors for the same year, and choosing between them changes the result by roughly 9 to 15% (see the worked example below). This guide explains what each factor covers and how to combine them.

What ISPRA publishes

ISPRA's dataset Fattori di emissione per la produzione ed il consumo di energia elettrica in Italia gives a national time series "1990-2024 e preliminari 2025": figures up to 2024 plus a preliminary estimate for 2025. LCALens imports version 2 of the workbook (FE_energia_elettrica_2025-V2.xlsx); ISPRA replaced the first version, published on 26 June 2026, to correct a unit in the radioactive-waste figures, which are not used here.

Table 9 of the workbook holds the national factors in grams of CO2 per kWh. They cover carbon dioxide only, not methane or nitrous oxide, so results calculated with them are CO2 rather than CO2e. LCALens labels such results "CO2" for that reason.

The three factors you need

Table 9 has several columns. Three matter for a company that buys electricity from the grid. The descriptions below are ISPRA's footnotes, translated.

Values are rounded here; LCALens stores them exactly as published (for example 192.59512656547312 g/kWh for 2024 consumption).

The consumption factor spreads national emissions over electricity actually consumed, after grid losses and including imports. Because losses are already inside it, you should not add grid losses on top.

The gross production factor divides emissions by all electricity generated in Italy, renewables included. It does not include losses, so if you use it for Scope 2, report the electricity lost in the grid separately in Scope 3 category 3.

The grid-loss factor applies to kilowatt-hours lost, not consumed. ISPRA's table 1 publishes the share of losses in consumption for each year (6.56% in 2024), so the lost electricity is your consumption multiplied by that share.

Worked example: 100,000 kWh in 2024

The two approaches answer different questions, so they do not give the same total. The GHG Protocol's technical guidance for Scope 3 category 3 calculates loss emissions as "electricity consumed (kWh) × electricity life cycle emission factor ((kg CO2e)/kWh) × T&D loss rate (%)". ISPRA's loss factor covers CO2 from generation, not the full life cycle, so the result above is a CO2-only, generation-only estimate of that term.

Whichever approach you choose, state it in your report and keep it the same from year to year.

How the factors have changed

Italy's grid has decarbonised substantially. The consumption factor fell from 523.0 g CO2/kWh in 1990 to 192.6 g in 2024, a drop of 63%:

Factors in g CO2/kWh; loss share is losses divided by consumption. Source: ISPRA tables 1 and 9.

Two practical points follow from this table:

• Use the factor for your reporting year. A 2020 factor applied to 2024 consumption would overstate emissions by about a third.
• The latest year is preliminary. ISPRA marks 2025 as an estimate. If you report 2025 now, note that the factor may be revised and recalculate when the final value is published.

Location-based and market-based

ISPRA's factors are grid averages, which is what the GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance calls the location-based method: one that "reflects the average emissions intensity of grids on which energy consumption occurs". If you buy electricity under a contract with its own emission rate (for example with guarantees of origin), the market-based method uses that contractual information instead, and the guidance requires companies operating in such markets to report both figures. See location-based vs market-based Scope 2 for how the two fit together. In LCALens, market-based factors are entered as your own private factors with evidence attached.

In LCALens

• Electricity, Italy (location-based): choose the basis (production or consumption) and the year.
• Grid losses, Italy: enter consumption; the calculator applies ISPRA's loss share and loss factor for the year and shows each step.

Every result shows the ISPRA value, the table and row it came from, and the checksum of the file it was read from.