Fears are growing for the imminent end of the protected market which for electricity (micro-enterprises and condominiums) will start in less than two months, on 1 January 2023, the same date on which the protection for gas supplies of the families.
To join the alarm cry of businesses and traders are the consumers of Assoutenti, an association that has released a report on offers on the free market of electricity and gas with figures that make your wrists tremble.
"On the basis of the latest monitoring of the offers on the Arera Offers Portal, the tariffs applied on the free energy and gas market are significantly higher than those of the protected market - analyzes Assoutenti - In particular, fixed price contracts, i.e. where the electricity and gas tariffs are fixed for a certain period of time, they even appear prohibitive, reaching an average annual cost of € 5,077 per family for gas (annual consumption 1,400 smc) and € 2,429 for electricity (annual consumption 2,700 kwh).
Comparing these data with the tariffs in force on the protected market, the gap is abnormal: for a fixed-price contract, gas costs on the free market on average 166% more with a higher cost of +3,173 euros per family;
+ 124% the light with an increase of +1.346 euros per year per unit.
Scissor that is reduced for variable price contracts: for this type of bills the free market costs on average 23.8% more than the protected one for gas, + 18.1% for electricity ".
"It is no coincidence - Assoutenti notes - for gas only 3.1% of the 572 offers on the free market on the Arera Portal are cheaper than the protected market (in total 18 cheaper offers: 12 at variable prices, 6 at fixed price). Percentage that rises to 9.4% in the electricity sector (but only 0.9% concerns fixed price contracts) ".
"The Government must necessarily take this abnormal gap into account for all the decisions it will adopt in the energy sector - says President Furio Truzzi - With the imminent end of the protected regime, families will be projected into a market, the free one, where tariffs and the economic conditions are far more disadvantageous, with inevitable cost increases.
For this reason, today we make an appeal to the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin and to Premier Giorgia Meloni, to immediately vary an extension of the protected gas market, at least until January 2024 as for electricity, with the possibility of further postponements should the current emergency continue, in order to save families and businesses from the unsustainable costs of the free market ", concludes Truzzi.