Arera, the energy authority, has extended to 1 April 2023 the activation date of the gradual protection service for micro-enterprises and for the generality of non-domestic customers (for example condominiums) which starting from 1 January 2023 – as required by the competition law 124/17 – can no longer be supplied permanently in the enhanced protection service.
The reasons for the delay
The decision, explains Arera in a note, “was necessary for the deferment of more than two months of the dates for carrying out the insolvency procedures that should have assigned the service at the beginning of October 2022. The authority had already deferred the timing for the procedures tender (resolution 419/2022/R/eel) due to the computer attack suffered by the GSE group at the end of August. With the publication, by Acquirente Unico, of the Tender Regulations updated with the new dates, three months from the publication of the relative results are necessary for the transfer of customers to the new Gradual Protection operators».
In the period between 1 January 2023 and 1 April 2023, micro-enterprises and non-domestic customers (for example condominiums) who have not yet chosen a seller on the free market will still be temporarily served by their own enhanced protection operator, at the same active conditions, thus ensuring continuity of supply.
In this period, non-residential customers will not be able to request return to the enhanced protection service if they already have a contract under free market conditions.
Consumer reaction
“Great news, but that’s not enough! After our complaint that condominiums were inexplicably considered micro-enterprises, for them the date must be the same as that of families, i.e. January 10, 2024 and not April 1, 2023. For this reason, a modification of the Aid quater Decree is urgently needed, which in addition to postponing the protection of gas, as it has done, must also extend that for those who live in a building and who cannot be discriminated against just because they do not live alone», commented Marco Vignola, head of the energy sector of the National Consumer Union.