First estimates of how the Arera energy authority will be able to update the electricity and gas bills on 1 April. Electricity + 20%. Methane + 2%. These are indicative estimates prepared by Nomisma Energia analysts coordinated by the economist Davide Tabarelli in the optimistic hypothesis that no significant events occur on the energy markets. But the recent news has unaccustomed us to tranquility and the forecasts with an advance of three weeks have chiromantic reliability.
The Arera update
Every three months the Arera energy authority updates the electricity and gas tariffs on the basis of costs for small consumers who have not yet preferred the free market and who are therefore still linked to the classic bills of the more protected sector. These are families but also micro-enterprises such as shops, offices, artisan workshops.
In the last days of the month, the Arera experts will examine the trends in the spot gas market in February, the data for which are already available, and the electricity prices of the futures markets, not yet available today, and will adjust the bills for the following quarter, ie from April to June.
The doubling of methane
The update of the gas bill is based on spot prices recorded in February, when prices (already very high) were much more sober than today. In the first days of March the price more than doubled. The update of 1 April will not yet detect this trend in gas costs, which will fully manifest itself in the subsequent update of 1 July.
Nomisma Energia experts explain that «despite the great uncertainty caused by the Ukrainian tragedy, it is possible to make some estimates on the consequences of the war on bills. The adjustment, the second for 2022, will start on 1 April, but will be decided towards the end of March. The prices that will be used as a reference for the gas bill are those of the spot market for the month of February, which closed immediately after the war began and was relatively low at 80 euros per megawatt hour. It is a value in line with that of the last adjustment, therefore, it is already possible to estimate that from 1 April gas tariffs should remain stable at 1.37 euros per cubic meter, after the exceptional increase of 42% last January ».