From October, with the quarterly review of tariffs, the electricity bill risks increasing by 40% and the gas bill by 31%. A sting that would result in a annual increase of at least 500 euros for Italian families. This was announced on Monday by the Minister of the Environment and Ecological Transition, Roberto Cingolani. To address the issue, a meeting of the Energy Authority will be held in a few days and the Minister of the Economy, Daniele Franco, will convene a summit to understand what measures to take.
The goal of the government and the Authority is to limit the increases to ensure that they do not curb the rebound of the economy after the black year of Covid. The executive was already intervened in the summer with an allocation of 1,3 billion euros, without which the increases recorded in July for the electricity bill (+9,9%) and the gas one (+13,3%) would have been more than double.
But why are bills rising so steeply? The explanation must be sought in a series of factors linked to the international situation.
1) THE COST OF GAS CONTINUES TO RISE
First of all, a significant increase in the cost of gas, determined in turn by the surge in demand from Asia (China in the lead). In Italy, gas represents over 50% of the fuel used in power plants and is widely used in industrial activities that consume more energy, such as steel mills, chemical activities and cement plants.
2) COMPANIES DOWNLOAD THE "POLLUTE PERMITS" ON THE BILL
Secondly, the costs that companies have to bear to compensate for the pollution produced in terms of carbon dioxide emissions are increasing. Real gods"permits to pollute” which, however, end up in the bills to be paid by the end users.
3) UNEXPECTED CLIMATE EVENTS
Then there are unexpected weather events: on the one hand a long calm on the North Sea which slows down the production of wind energy, on the other the tropical hurricanes which disturb the oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico.
4) THE INCREASE OF GLOBAL DEMAND
Finally, it is also, trivially, the global economic recovery that determines the rises, which produces a strong effect all over the world increase in consumption.
