The Electricity and Gas Authority today launched some proposals to increase the transparency of bills. Here are the main ones:
– new meter reading obligations, in order to increasingly link bills to actual consumption;
– incentives for customers to use self-reading;
– criteria that reduce the difference between real and estimated values;
– increase in the frequency of sending bills;
– automatic compensation of 20 euros for the customer in the event that the invoice arrives late, or more than 45 days after the end of the reference period of the bill;
– prohibition of mixed invoices (containing actual and estimated data) for over 40% of the customers served by the seller and for those who choose monthly billing;
– certain times for closing bills in the event of a change of supplier, transfer or deactivation.
All of these tips are contained in the consultation document “Invoicing in the retail market”. Interested parties may submit their observations by 30 September 2015.
The proposals are also based on the initial results of the Authority's fact-finding survey on billing, which shows that bills linked only to actual consumption account for around 75% of the total in the electricity sector - where around 98% of customers have a meter remotely managed electronic -, while they are just 8,5% in the gas sector, where, however, the spread of remotely managed meters is only just beginning.
