electricity and gas, in 2023 more beneficiaries of social bonuses. Now the revolution of the end of tutela- Corriere.it

If the gas emergency has ended, even if prices remain unstable, now the “concern” is the raw material water, which with climate change is destined to no longer be available as before. For waste, as for water, the management gap in the country remains too wide. And at the end of this year, the challenge of the end of the protected market awaits us. The president of the Arera Stefano Besseghini presented the annual report of the energy, waste and water regulation authority to Parliament and the government.

Energy prices

In terms of energy prices, which in 2022 reached their highest levels ever, Besseghini said that «the crisis bites with less intensity (gas bills have dropped, those of electricity are substantially stable), but the markets are still tense and exposed to strong fluctuations», but he hoped to continue with energy savings (electricity consumption fell by 1.1% in 2022, gas consumption by 9.9%) also in the summer: «If in winter we lowered the thermostat by a few degrees, in summer we can raise it by the same amount». He then indicated how much the gas tariff update change made last October made it possible to save, which from quarterly became monthly and retroactive and based on the quotations of the Italian wholesale market (Psv) abandoning the indexation to the futures of the Ttf and which in the winter semester 2022-2023 resulted in an advantage of 3 billion for consumers of the protected regime.

The end of guardianship

In a complex scenario, there is an event that will lead to an epochal change for consumers: the end of the protected regime in January 2024. “The national energy market – declared Besseghini – will undergo a substantial change with the definitive overcoming of the enhanced protection service for both the electricity and gas markets. After 16 years, various postponements and a constant commercial action carried out by operators to bring customers to the free market, we are in a situation in which about 30% of domestic electricity consumers, for a total of about 9 million customers, are still served from the guardianship service. The market alone has not been able to determine such conditions as to be attractive for these consumers, but it must also be considered that a percentage (difficult to define) of consumers has not been found to be interesting for the market and particular care must be taken of these” .

The vulnerable

The protection will remain for a category deemed vulnerable. “The main novelty that has recently occurred has been the identification of the so-called category of vulnerable customers – explained the president of the Arera Authority – consumers who, by virtue of a not always obvious fragility with respect to the ability to obtain supplies on the market, will have to be the recipients of particular conditions of supply, in particular of price. The decision to manage the category of vulnerable people differently entails a substantial halving of the number of customers affected by upcoming auctions. A lower but certainly substantial number, estimated to date at around 5 million consumers. A concern, repeatedly expressed by this Authority, is that the number of the audience implies a lack of competition and a possible increase in prices for the final consumer”.

Social bonuses

And it is precisely to meet the weakest groups that during the gas crisis the social bonus was extended up to 15,000 euros per year from Isee. In 2022, a total of 6,207,263 bonuses were paid for economic hardship: 3,766,105 electricity bonuses (+51.4% compared to 2021) and 2,441,158 gas bonuses (+58.7%) for a total value of over 2,162 million euros (around 1,313 million for electricity bonuses and around 849 million for direct gas bonuses).

“For the year 2023 – indicated the president of Arera – a further increase in the beneficiaries of the electricity and gas social bonuses can be estimated, which could amount respectively to approximately 4.7 and 2.8 million households”. Who then specified: «The last months of the current year will necessarily see a phase of rethinking of social bonuses; evaluations and choices will be necessary in relation to the ISEE access threshold and the economic values ​​of the discounts in the bill”. In 2022, a total of 4.4 billion euro was spent on electricity and gas social bonuses; approximately 2 billion euros were allocated for the electricity bonus and 1.8 billion for the gas bonus to strengthen these instruments in the face of the energy price crisis, recalled Besseghini.

The scarcity of water

But now it’s the water that worries. “It is customary to say that future wars will be fought for water and not for oil,” declared the president of Arera. “We will not only have a problem of scarcity, but a structural change of the precipitation mechanism with an extremes of the phenomena”. The reduction of waste is crucial here too, as was the energy saving of gas and electricity, but Besseghini also indicates the management of rainwater and the reuse of purified water as tools.

Investments in the water sector

Investment expenditure has not been lacking and has gone from values ​​close to one billion euros in 2012 to about four times that in 2022 and 4.5 billion in 2023, «favoring – declared Besseghini – a process of improving the quality of integrated water service. This result derives from adding to the (preponderant) quota of resources made available by the user through water tariffs (about 4 billion), that made available by public resources, allocated within the framework of the Next Generation EU instruments. Considered in per capita terms, Italy is finally approaching the typical values ​​of the most advanced countries: for the four-year period 2020-2023, investment expenditure equal, in per capita terms, to €276/inhabitant (corresponding to an annual for investments of 69 euros/inhabitant). From the analysis of the latest technical data available on the state of the infrastructures (referring to 2021), confirmation emerges of the existence, in the country, of a Water Service Divide, with values ​​of the technical parameters which tend, in general, to represent situations of greater criticalities in correspondence with the Southern area and the Islands, although for some indicators more marked improvements can be seen in these areas compared to the rest of the country.

Waste and tariffs, watch out for inflation

As for waste, which has recently come under regulation, Besseghini confirmed that the goal is “overcoming an intolerable difference in the quality of the service and in the costs incurred, which often leads to the combination of higher costs and worse quality, in different parts of the country». The tariff method – reads the report – “contributes to this design with transparency in costs, certainty in the remuneration of investments, the defense of consumers from programming inefficiencies and the enhancement of territories that accept plant engineering solutions, even relevant ones”. And changes could come on the tariff front. «The update of the MTR-2 (the waste tariff method of the second regulatory period, ed.) cannot ignore significant and concomitant external factors. Among these, in our considerations, the inflation dynamic prevails. The Authority is therefore identifying mechanisms that ensure, on the one hand, the continuity of the service and on the other, the sustainability of the fees to the end user”.

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