Possibility to request the installment of electricity and gas bills even after the payment deadline, with a lengthening of the time available, and strengthening of guarantees for customers who do not pay regularly in the event of formal notice. These are the main innovations in terms of arrears approved by the Energy and Gas Authority with resolution 258/2015/R/com.
In particular, for customers served under the protection schemes, the request to obtain payment in installments can now be made not only before the deadline but even within 10 days following the deadline set for payment of the invoice, i.e. within 30 days of its issue, instead of the current 20. Furthermore, to protect consumers, the communication of formal notice will be mandatory for all invoices for which payments are not shown, even for those overdue in the period in which a previous default procedure is already underway, otherwise the seller will not be able to request the suspension of the supply.
It therefore comes for electricity and gas protection services guaranteed more time to request payment in installments, which must necessarily be offered to the customer, for example in some cases of balancing billing or debit of consumption not recorded by the meter due to malfunction not attributable to the customer. The provisions on installment payments in the two sectors are then made homogeneous. The provision is part of a process of changes to the retail market which also provides for interventions deemed a priority on ways to incentivize billing based on actual consumption or self-readings and for the full implementation of the Integrated Information System (SII).
In general, the rules on the formal notice procedure are intended to avoid the suspension of the supply due to arrears if the customer has not received the communication in good time to make payment, with reference to each unpaid invoice. Since 2013, the Authority has refined the regulation on the subject which establishes certain, documented and congruous timescales, both for the final payment term after the formal notice, and for the subsequent request for suspension of the supply in the event of prolonged default by the customer . Furthermore, before requesting suspension for arrears in the event of adjustments or anomalous amounts, the seller must in any case respond to written complaints from customers. To ensure that the answers in the event of a dispute over the amounts are fully exhaustive regarding the correctness of the billing, with a joint work with the consumer and operator associations, new obligations will be defined in terms of minimum content of the same answers.
But this is not the only news in terms of energy. With an amendment to the 2014 European law, under consideration in the Chamber, the government has in fact blew up the ceiling of 154 million which was set as the maximum amount for the Authority's fines for energy, led by the president Guido Bortoni, cahe will now therefore be able to impose fines of up to 10% of the turnover of defaulting companies, whatever the value of the gross turnover. Now the Authority will be able to also impose the realization of key investments. The change was introduced following the infringement procedure opened last February against Italy for the incorrect application of the so-called Third Energy Package, a set of measures containing provisions that modify the current regulatory framework relating to the internal European energy market with the aim of strengthening its integration and improving its functioning.
