How many of us really understand the 1642 euros we spend per year on electricity and gas? Bills are always difficult to read, with thousands of items that are not easily decipherable. But things will change. From 1 July 2025, bills that can be understood at a glance will debut, in the name of simplification. And that’s not the only new development for consumers, who in the last four years have had to deal with a 108% increase in spending on electricity and 72% on gas (Cgia di Mestre), often without knowing exactly what they were paying.
2024 will be remembered as the year of farewell to the protected market. For a month now, those who had not yet chosen to switch to the free market have been receiving letters communicating which operator, among the winners of this winter’s auctions, has been assigned “ex officio”. The next novelty will be in September. Again in the name of simplification, the portability of direct debit for bills was approved in recent days. This has never happened before. By switching to the new operator, consumers also carry over their direct debit. So everything happens without having to fill out consent forms or authorize a new debit to the current account. It will all be automatic.
And then there is the news that concerns everyone: from July 2025 we will receive more transparent bills, where prices and consumption will be more understandable. What will they be like? Four sections. A frontispiece that is the same for all providers where we will find the amount to be paid and information on the supply, service, billing and payment contract. Next will be the “energy receipt” with all the expense items that determine the final amount to be paid detailed separately. Then we will read the “consumption quota”, the “fixed quota” and the “power quota” for electricity separately. And then VAT, excise duties, any bonuses, late payment interest, additional products and/or services and the Rai license fee. The third section of the bill will be occupied by the “offer box” that summarizes the contractual conditions signed with the supplier, so as to allow us to verify that the chosen offer is correctly applied. Finally, we will find a section on “essential information” where readings and consumption, recalculations, historical information on consumption and the maximum power drawn, payment status and installments will be written.
We will understand more easily what we pay. But how much do we pay? Each family spends on average 2,906 euros, 12% of the entire annual family expenditure: 855 euros for electricity bills, 787 euros for gas bills, 677 euros for telephone/internet, 238 for waste collection and 190 euros for water. This means that 1,642 euros per year, over 56% of Italians’ expenditure, are for electricity and gas. From 2019 to 2023, electricity bills increased by 108% and gas bills by 72.1%. Covid first and then the war between Russia and Ukraine, among the reasons for the energy surge. But the situation is changing. In the first half of 2024, electricity bills fell by 34.2% compared to the same period in 2023 and gas bills by 19.6%. And in a few months we will read more clearly what we are paying.
