The gas bill goes up again. Arera: “In November +13.7% compared to October for customers in enhanced protection” – Il Fatto Quotidiano

Back to increase the gas bill for families still in the regime of enhanced protection. After the decline recorded in the month of October (-12.9%)the Energy Authority Arera has decided that a price increase will come in November +13.7% compared to the previous month. From the beginning of autumn, the Arera updates the gas price component to cover procurement costs from month to month, using the monthly average price on the Italian wholesale market.

For the month of November, the price of the gas raw material, for customers with contracts under protected conditions, is set at 91.2 euros, equal to the average of the prices surveyed daily throughout the month that has just ended. In terms of final effects, gas expenditure for the typical household in the rolling year (between 1 December 2021 and 30 November 2022) is approximately 1,740 euros, +63.7% compared to the equivalent 12 months of the previous year (December 1, 2020 – November 30, 2021). At the same time, the Arera recalled that, as required by Aid Bis decreefor the fourth quarter it has eliminated the general system charges also for gas and confirmed the expansion of the social bonus for families with an ISEE level of up to 12,000 euros (20,000 for large families).

The reaction of consumers who talk about “catastrophe” on the skin of customers. “The government intervenes immediately by modifying the Legislative Decree Quater, otherwise it will be a white Christmas for families. Already the bills were heart attack and unsustainable, but now a new tsunami has hit the Italians “, he commented Mark Vignolahead of the energy sector of theNational Consumer Union. According to the Unc study, for a typical family under guardianship, 13.7% means spending an extra 207 euros on an annual basis. The total expenditure in the twelve months (not, therefore, according to the rolling year, but from 1 November 2022 to 1 October 2023 in the hypothesis of constant prices) reaches the figure of 1714 euros, which “added to the 1782 of the electricity already taken on 1st October determine a total sting of 3496 euros”. Gas prices are now 26.4% higher than in November 2021 and 82.5% higher than in November 2020, underlines the UNC note. “The Meloni government should have calmed this quarter’s bills with the Dl Aiuti quater as we had asked. Unfortunately it didn’t. Intervene now, in the conversion phase of the decree, retroactively on the month of November, as Draghi did in the past. Also in maneuver there is not enough for families. In practice, even for 2023 we are limited only to repeat what has already been done by Draghi, which however is no longer enough to avoid increases. We didn’t expect it to be done like in Germany, where the state pays the bills in December, but we expected at least a little more step”, concludes Vignola.

“This is a particularly alarming figure, especially given the cold temperatures,” he adds Federconsumatori. “This increase will also further contribute to the inflation growth, already at +11.9%. For this reason, a more incisive intervention by the Government is needed, which goes beyond the measures already envisaged in the manoeuvre, to help families bear these costs. The association has been claiming for some time “the suspension of the detachments due to arrears for families; a installment length of the bills, allowed by the Aid quater Decree only to companies; bill reform, which envisages a permanent reduction in tax and parafiscal charges; the establishment of a vendor register, accredited on the basis of requirements and guarantees in terms of solidity, reliability, quality of service and environmental and social sustainability; the redefinition of the energy price formation system, considering the weighted average of the costs of the various sources and decoupling electricity and gas, to more effectively combat speculation; the planning of an industrial and energy policy to relaunch investments in renewable sources and storage technologies, adopting measures to support the development of energy communities”.

The data “confirm our concerns about the new calculation model decided by Arera which, in fact, does not change the substance for consumers and does not cancel the price increases”, he says Absolute users. “In the long run, for consumers, the change in the reference gas market will be worse than the previous one: according to our simulation, 7 times out of 12 the PSV market proved to be more disadvantageous than the TTF. More than changing the calculation method, we need to impose administered prices, starting from the transparency of the real costs of the raw material”, says the president Furio Truzzi.