To go from 20 current customers to one million within the next three years, with an investment of half a billion euros. It is the ambitious challenge of Iberdrola, Spanish energy group just defeated by Enel in the race for the Brazilian Eletropaulo and which made its debut on the Italian market in 2016, with the first customers acquired in 2017 and the first full-bodied advertising campaign just launched. The goal is to be ready for the appointment in a year's time when, from 1 July 2019, the energy market will be liberalized and every user in Italy will have to choose their electricity and gas supplier from scratch.
Just one year is the duration of theIberdola introductory offer for domestic supplies: “We offer the first 12 months – said the country manager Lorenzo Costantini at a press conference in Milan – with a totally transparent bill, without additional costs and unclear items; 100% clean energy and above all one 25% Off on the energy component of the protected market". Translated into a nutshell, it means saving about 100 euros a year on bills for an average customer, who uses a power of 3 kW and consumes 2.700 kWh.
Recently landed in Italy, Iberdrola is an important player on the international market: entirely private, it supplies energy to 100 million people worldwide and is at the forefront of decarbonisation objectives: "We are the world's leading producer of wind energy - said Costantini - E only 2% of our energy comes from coal, against an average of 21% in Europe and 25% in the USA”. Iberdola currently supplies electricity and gas in Italy but does not produce or distribute energy, an activity it already carries out in many European countries starting from Spain but also France, the UK, Portugal and Germany.
It is also the first electricity producer in Mexico, the third from wind in the USA and, in the challenge with Enel which will now also continue on the Italian market, the first electricity company in Brazil and the first in South America by total number of customers. “We have also grown as a company – explained the Italian country manager -: listed on the Madrid Stock Exchange, we are the second European utility by capitalization after Enel, ahead of Edf and Engie, with over 40 billion”.
Currently 60% of the energy produced by Iberdrola comes from renewable sources, and overall the clean energy produced is 70% of the total, with the ambition, however, of entering the Italian market with totally green energy: “We have three objectives: savings, transparency and 100% sustainability”, adds Costantini. The challenge is not simple because the transition from the protection regime still needs to be fully regulated and for the new players there is fear of facing obstacles: "First of all we expect the consumer to be protected, and then that the competition be loyal".
To date, there are only 20 thousand customers, of which however 15 are domestic and evenly scattered throughout the peninsula, especially in big cities but also in the South, according to Iberdrola. There are four thousand VAT numbers and micro-enterprises, a thousand SMEs and large industrial customers. The goal is to insist heavily on retail and reach one million customers between now and 2021. The ways to reach it are an unprecedented advertising campaign ("the most expensive we have supported internationally"), digitization (it is the new website is online) and the presence of corner malls in the area to have direct contact with the customer.
