Electricity bill + 59% from October. Expenditure rises to € 1,322 per year for a “typical family”

MILANO – The electricity bill rose 59% in the fourth quarter. The increase is calculated on a “typical family”, that is with average consumption of 2,700 kilowatt hours per year, for which, in this way, the cost of electricity from January to December grows to € 1,322, more than double the € 632 of 2021. This was communicated by the Arera, the Regulatory Authority for energy, stating that it had managed to limit the damage “with an extraordinary intervention”, without which the increases would have been in the order of 100 percent. The increase in tariffs concerns only protected users, ie just over 7 million customers, and not those of the free market. However, the rise in prices is extremely important, because in this particular phase, protection can be considered a point of reference for the entire electricity sector. Also by virtue of the difficulties that utilities are going through, which buy gas and energy at current prices and then resell them to households and businesses, it is in fact difficult for better prices to be obtained on the free market.

“Wholesale gas prices – writes Arera in the note announcing the increase in electricity prices – reached abnormal levels in recent months due to the continuing war in Ukraine, fears over the safety of gas pipelines and financial tensions, would have led to an increase of about 100%, despite the Government’s intervention with the Aid bis decree. The Authority, to further limit the price increases on households and businesses, has decided to exceptionally postpone the necessary recovery of the difference between the prices budgeted for the last quarter and the real costs that occurred, also characterized by extraordinarily high increases “. The fact is, as he points out the Authority chaired by Stefano Besseghini“in the third quarter of 2022, based on preliminary data, the single national price of electricity (Pun) almost doubled compared to the second quarter of 2022 and almost quadrupled compared to the average level of the corresponding quarter of 2021”.

“The exceptional nature of the situation, with a conflict that makes supplies uncertain and continues to push prices up – says Besseghini – deserved an equally exceptional intervention, also considering that Parliament and the Government are engaged in a transition phase. A doubling of bills could have led to an increase in arrears, further putting families and the energy system in difficulty “.

Among the other innovations announced in the note, the Arera makes it known that it has sent today “a report to the Government and Parliament” to reiterate that the end of the protected market in the gas sector, scheduled for January 2023, is postponed. It should be remembered that, precisely with regard to gas bills, based on the new method introduced in July by the energy, the price to protected customers will be updated at the end of each month, which means that the price for October will be announced at the beginning of November. More: “given the critical issues of the moment”, Arera made it known that, in the same report, “also for electricity to postpone the end of the electrical protection for micro-enterprises (scheduled for next January 1) and consequently also that for domestic customers “, scheduled for January 2024.