Annual energy exchanges and their remuneration are analyzed for relevant production units (with at least 10 MVA nominal capacity) operating on the Italian wholesale electricity market from 2014 to 2021.

Both the energy markets, i.e. the Day-Ahead Market (DAM) and the Intraday Market (IM), and the Ancillary Service Market (ASM), with its scheduling (ex ante ASM) and Balancing Market (BM) stages, are considered. Production units are grouped according to their primary energy source (e.g. gas, coal, hydro, wind, solar units) and, where possible, to their technology (e.g. hydropower: pumped-storage, reservoir, run-of-river units).

Results show that, over the DAM and the IM, gas maintains a central role to meet the final energy consumption; with the exception of coal, whose contribution to energy exchanges is gradually decreasing, the other sources provide more limited but quite constant contributions, mainly from wind units and run-of-river units; only few PV systems have been analyzed, due to limited data availability.

As to the ASM, the analyzed relevant production units cover roughly all the supply of ancillary services, instead; here gas units have an essential role; a very limited but strategic role is observed for pumped-storage units, particularly on the BM. On the whole, the economic results mirror the energy ones.