The Authority for Energy, Networks and the Environment (Arera) once again asks to transfer the financing of some measures currently covered through the system charges incurred by users with electricity and gas bills to general taxation. The appeal was launched a few days ago, during a hearing before the X Production Activities Commission of the Chamber, by the president of the Authority, Stefano Besseghini, who drew attention to the risk of a new significant increase in prices for protection services in the first quarter of 2022 “which would determine criticalities similar to those faced for the fourth quarter of 2021”.
The need for support for renewables
For the Arera it is therefore necessary to review the composition of the bill once and for all, with particular reference to the weight of the charges in the electricity sector which, according to the estimates released by the Authority itself, will generate a total requirement of approximately 10 billion euros for the next year. only for the Asos component (the item that supports the development of renewables), just one billion less than the amount raised for 2021 (about 11 billion).
The intervention on the social bonus
What to do then? For the Arera the road is clear: a series of items currently covered by general charges must be transferred to general taxation, starting with the social bonuses for energy and the environment recognized to disadvantaged families. A social policy measure, the Authority underlines in its memoir, the scope of which has grown considerably with the activation of automatic recognition for those entitled to the bonus.
The weight of support for energy eaters
Among the items that should be financed through the tax lever, the Authority also includes the cost of the concessions for energy-intensive companies which weighs 1.6 billion euros a year on non-energy-intensive domestic and non-domestic customers and which would decrease if they were reduced charges for renewable sources.
The other items to be financed with general taxation
According to the Authority, then, the cost of the concessions for railway traction on the traditional network should also be transferred (the consumption of RFI for railway services on the high-speed network does not take advantage of the special tariff regime), which so far amounts to about 400 million euros, and about 135 million euros, collected through specific elements of the Arim component, which are paid annually by the CSEA to the state budget by virtue of specific rules contained in the 2005 and 2006 budget laws.