Gas bills, for the energy authority the autumn will be dramatic: “Unprecedented increases and there is a risk of default of suppliers with costs borne by customers”

“It will be an autumn complex“, he said Mario Draghi last week after announcing that the government in charge for current affairs will soon pass a new aid decree. To at least partially clarify the contours of what will happen after the elections theEnergy Authority (Arera), which in a document sent to Parliament e government the alarm sounded. THE parties engaged in arguing over boarding schools are warned: in the October-December quarter for consumers who warm up and cook with gas they will come price increases Without precedents. “Cost changes never occurred“, Is the expression used. Considering that in the first three months of 2022 the bills are increased by 42%, the authority predicts it will get even worse. Without new interventions, the increase would be “more than 100% compared to the current quarter “and the renewal of discounts on general system charges, expected in days, will calm him only in part. We will reach levels “hardly sustainable for all consumers, not just domestic ones, with potential repercussions on the stability of the entire supply chain“. A scenario defined “dramatic“.

The document, dated 29 July, is entitled “Reporting by the regulatory authority in relation to critical issues linked to the high prices of natural gas “caused by the war in Ukraine and the” now overt use of gas as pressure tool on European economies “. The tones are definitely alarmed. Arera recalls that “the current context of war has led to a situation of strong tension, at national and EU level, on the energy markets, in particular that of natural gas, with prices in wholesale markets that have exceeded 200 €/MWh (more than double the already very high prices recorded in the previous months and equal to approx ten times the average prices of the last five years) “. But prices are not the only problem: despite the ostentatious optimism of the Ecological Transition minister Roberto Cingolaniaccording to which Italy will get away with no rationing, the authority notes that the “strong uncertainty about the actual availability of an adequate supply of natural gas for the next winter” entails “difficulties in finding volumes needed to meet demandincluding the one for use domestic and, for many end customers, to conclude supply contracts for the next thermal year “. This suggests “a potential growth in cases of activation of the transport default service” and “a subsequent massive transfer of end customers to services of last resort”.

A scenario of default a catena – “as, moreover, has already happened in various European countries” – which would have repercussions on the equilibrium of the system “producing a increased costs to socialize borne by the generality of end customers “. Situations that, moreover, in some cases “are already checked out last winter and have resulted in one imbalance of the system for a few hundred million euros that could require socialization “.

In this framework, the authority led by says between the lines Stefano Besseghini, the European plan for the voluntary reduction of consumption 15% (however, with numerous exceptions) it is not enough: they are “di dramatic urgency in consideration of the approaching winter season and current price levels “further interventions”nationwide and, above all, European “. Arera pushes for the launch of a European price ceiling, which Draghi has been asking for months but on which it only obtained that the Council “explore its feasibility”. At this point in the fall, out of time. According to the regulators, it is essential to “implement measures aimed at restoring a balance between supply and demand through, on the one hand, the reduction of demand on a voluntary basis to be pursued also with specific and non-postponable campaigns of communicationas already implemented with good results in other European countries, and on the other, through the identification of mechanisms for management of interventions of containment of demand in case of emergency”.

What is Italy doing on these fronts? Not much: for Cingolani thanks to diversification of gas purchases and (in the medium term) of energy production sources we are in an iron barrel: “In the short term (2022 and 2023) the reduction in supply from Russia is offset by new supplies algerine e there is no need for drastic containment measures demand from the industrial sector “, it will be sufficient”lower the heating by one degree and reduce by one hour of houses and offices, both public and private ”, he guaranteed on 27 July. Two days before Arera described a “dramatic” autumn. In the short term, however, the new majority will have to deal with the problem. Who doesn’t seem fully aware of the situation. The leader of the League Matteo Salvini on Tuesday morning he said on TV that “this week in CdM on a proposal from the League this government will approve a decree that renews the discounts on electricity and gas bills until 30 September”. But the extension until the end of September was already launched at the end of June.

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