Free or protected market? And Which of the 723 gas and electricity suppliers in Italy bombard us with their sometimes intrusive and inappropriate phone calls through call centers? The answers to these questions could determine our savings on the main expense item in our household budget, which has skyrocketed due to a series of factors now out of our control. The first way to save on cost of the energy bill, electricity, and gas, is learning to read it. It's not the simplest thing to do, but it's essential. Unfortunately, despite several steps forward, including under pressure from consumers, utility bills often remain difficult to decipher, partly due to the usual mountain of laws and regulations that complicate everything.
To achieve this, limit yourself to the essentials. First of all check your data on the bill and type of contract that you have stipulated: check that everything fits. Secondly, focus on the part relating to expensesThere are four types, and they must be clearly differentiated. There's the cost of supplying the product, which, to ensure it's under control, should be monitored by you at least every three months and then reported to the company. Keep in mind that these are the costs that the competition plays on (the others are the same for everyone), and for all types of comparisons, you can seek help from reliable sites like ComparaSemplice.
It is a platform that allows a comparison with all the most important managers, and operates in 30 different countries across 4 continents: thanks to the completeness of the data, it not only allows for the necessary comparisons, but also for identifying the type of bill best suited to the consumption of each person and each family.
Other expenses include transportation, maintenance, and meter management costs; system charges (which also include financing for renewable energy); and VAT and excise duties, which must always be included on the bill. Finally, there is also the annual cost of the RAI license fee.
Obviously, the accuracy of the bills must be guaranteed according to the directives imposed by the authority that regulates the free energy market in Italy, ARERA – Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and the Environment, known to most as the former AEEG – Electricity and Gas Authority (The name of the authority was changed in 2018).
As regards the terms of the bill, at the expiry of each contract, with a time not exceeding 2 months, the supplier communicates including the applied rate will change, informing the consumer of the cost that will be applied to kWh after the end of the contract.
If the customer chooses to stay with the same supplier, he will simply have to renew the contractOtherwise, however, the cancellation must be communicated at least 60 days in advance And so you can decide to switch providers and move to a more economically advantageous offer. Thanks to market liberalization, terminating a contract does not involve penalties, and consumers can freely choose which operators on the market offer the best value.
There are some items on your electricity and gas bill, from VAT to transportation costs and system charges, that are the same for all suppliers. Don't waste your time: these expense items won't allow you to make any useful comparisons that will help you save money. The only thing that matters to finding the best deal is understanding how much we pay per kilowatt-hour (kWh): this is the raw material, which accounts for 80 percent of the electricity bill and 75 percent of the gas bill. Once you've isolated the energy expense item, simply divide it by the billed consumption and you'll have the cost per kilowatt-hour. At this point, you can go to the official ARERA website (
ilportaleofferte.it),
Look at all the rates available and compare them with yours, then decide on the most convenient solution based on your consumer needs.There are actually two options for the consumer: guardianship regime e free marketDon't be fooled by the names, the propaganda, and the rankings of the managers that circulate online (usually these are fake news). The facts simply show that under the protected regime, consumers pay the price set by the AREA every three months, with all the resulting consequences. In the first three months of 2022, for example, electricity and gas costs for customers with protected contracts increased between 50 and 70 percent. Under the free market formula, the price is set by the company that buys the energy and then resells it based on its commercial strategies, based on market share. Consumers can be offered solutions, as in the case of mortgages: a fixed price for a certain period of time (even more than a year) or a variable price. In the former case, the company will obviously bind the customer to the duration of the contract in exchange for the certainty that there will be no price increases during that period.
Finding your way through this jungle of offers can become problematic: this is why we have suggested you the simple method to identify the right one.
cost per kilowatt hour to then proceed with comparisons and final selection. But beware of traps and tricks on the part of suppliers. For example: they offer you a convenient supply, but in exchange they force you to purchase a
photovoltaic system that costs at least 5 euros. Or: the discount is valid for a very limited period; if you exceed the "all-inclusive" consumption limit, the cost of the supply skyrockets. These may seem like small details, but they make a difference in terms of costs. And they can only be discovered one way: by learning to read your bills.
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