The announced and as far as possible attenuated increase in electricity and gas bills for the first quarter of 2022 has arrived. The Energy Authority (Arera) had to launch record price increases from 1 January and for the entire first quarter of the new year: a 55% increase was established for electricity compared to the previous quarter, while for gas the increase is 41,8%. In a nutshell, for the typical family, the cost of electricity between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022 will rise by 823 euros and that for gas by 1560 euros.
The increase takes place despite the government having allocated first 3 and then 1,8 billion in the Budget Law just approved in Parliament, as well as reducing the VAT to 5% on gas, precisely to cushion the impact of the extraordinary increases in energy recorded on international spot markets and the run-up to CO2 emission certificates (the so-called Ets). Without this emergency intervention, the impact would have been far greater, as the Authority itself points out:
“The new extraordinary record increase in the prices of wholesale energy products (almost doubled in the spot markets for natural gas and electricity in the period September-December 2021) and in CO2 emission permits, would have led to an increase in the 65% of the electricity bill and 59,2% of the gas bill.
Arera press release of 30 December 2022
The instruments put in place by the government have therefore mitigated the exceptional impact of the price increases that took place on international markets but could not eliminate their impact, with the exception of the most needy families. In addition to the global factors linked to the post-Covid recovery and the bottlenecks generated on the energy market, it should be remembered that Italy is more exposed than other countries to price storms given that it depends on foreign countries for 90% of its gas requirement.
Returning to the imminent price increases, for families in difficulty, the Arera has strengthened the social bonuses for the light and for the gas which will protect the households on the basis of the family ISEE and which have been triggered automatically since last July thanks to the crossing of data with Inps and Acquirente Unico. This was possible thanks to the additional funds from the Budget Law.
In particular the Authority, for the first quarter of 2022 only, will support families in need with approximately EUR 600: 200 euros for electricity (family with 3-4 members) and 400 euros for gas (family up to 4 members, with gas heating in climate zone D). This will substantially offset the price increases for 2,5 million households that use the electricity bonus and 1,4 million that benefit from the gas bonus.
Furthermore, the Budget Law also provides that domestic customers will have to be able to obtain payment by installments of their bills from the managers issued from January to April 2022, “for a maximum period of 10 months and without interest". Precisely to guarantee the installment payment, a fund of 1 billion euros from the Fund for Energy and Environmental Services.
The current situation should ease after the first quarter of 2022 but it certainly worries Arera, whose president Stefano Besseghini throw a real appeal to consumers:
“We are in the presence of an absolutely exceptional situation. ARERA also tries to make its contribution by exploiting the limited levers available from bills and the tool of electricity and gas social bonuses. As already happened in the lockdown phase, the responsible action of consumers will be decisive. Energy saving is a tool to look at carefully, but solidarity between consumers is also needed, which is also expressed in punctual payments for those who have the opportunity. We are aware that important parts of society are today faced with serious and unexpected difficulties, ARERA is evaluating changes to that part of the regulation that normally applies to ordinary phases, adapting it - consistently with its founding mandate - to a situation that has no earlier".
Arera press release 30 December 2022
Looking back, in fact, the reference spot price of natural gas (the TTF) increased, from January to December of this year, by almost 500% (from 21 to 120 €/MWh in the average monthly values); in the same period, the price of CO2 more than doubled (from €33 to €79/tCO2). This huge leap in gas and CO2 has had repercussions on the production of electricity whose wholesale price has risen by almost the 400%. The phenomenon has also reached similar dimensions in the rest of Europe but, above all - observes the Authority - the forward prices recorded in December do not yet signal a trend reversal: natural gas is around 118 €/MWh and the electricity around 300 €/MWh. Overheating that should subside, according to the experts' forecasts, during 2022.
