An ocean of offers in which thousands of Sardinians risk being shipwrecked. The energy market is ready for yet another revolution and in less than five months it will say a definitive farewell to the protected market to welcome the one with gradual protections. An insidious transition, which from next July 1st will be obligatory for the approximately 200 thousand Sardinians who have not yet made the leap to the market managed by private operators, preferring (some with awareness, some out of laziness) to remain in the regulated one, and for certain more reassuring verses, from the Arera.
The crossroads, however, is anything but easy to take. The applicable tariffs with gradual protections will not be made official before June, so users will have a few days to decide their fate, risking, in the event of a wrong choice, spending thousands of euros more.
The conditions
The gradual protection service will concern all non-vulnerable domestic customers (i.e. neither over 75 nor disabled) who in July 2024 will not have an electricity supplier on the free market. There will be two suppliers for Sardinia, both winners of the public auctions held by the Guarantor. Invoicing will be bimonthly, no guarantee will be required from the customer and the rates will be blocked for pre-established periods.
«The management of the gradual protection service in Sardinia, as in all of Italy, will start on July 1st and will last 33 months», explains Paolo Bellotti, Marketing and Sales Manager of A2A Energia, the supplier that won the auction a few days ago for the management of users in the districts of Cagliari, Oristano and Southern Sardinia who have remained in the protected market until now and are destined to move to the gradual protection service in less than five months. «During the period of validity of the gradual protection service, the winning companies of the auctions will apply a fixed fee deriving from the outcome of the auctions themselves equal to – 73 euros/year which represents an overall annual saving of approximately 130 euros compared to the current protected market . This fee will then be remodulated from year to year based on the number of users remaining in the different areas. In fact, it should be remembered that customers present in the gradual protection service after July 1st will only be able to move to the free market, but it will not be possible to do the opposite path, i.e. transfer from a free market operator to the manager of the gradual protection service in their territory ».
Then there is a not insignificant passage to clarify: «Customers will not have to do anything and there are no costs or particular requirements for the transition to the new supplier», adds Bellotti, «they will receive a communication with all the information with the start of the gradual protection service".
Criticisms
However, the issue is far from transparent. At least for the main consumer protection associations, unanimous in launching an appeal for prudence to citizens, so that they do not fall into the trap of unclear and inconvenient offers.
«The market is an intricate jungle and Arera, the guarantor that should in theory supervise, contributes to making it even more incomprehensible», complains Giorgio Vargiu, regional president of Adiconsum. «What we know is that the new market with gradual protection should ensure average savings of around 73 euros per family on the current tariffs of the protected market, which in turn have proven to be much more convenient than the free one».
More than enough reasons for the consumer representative to have at least one certainty: «Whoever has remained in the protected market should not leave it and automatically enter the gradual protection service», says Vargiu, «without being duped by unscrupulous private operators who will everything in recent months to secure new customers, knowing in fact that after July 1st it will no longer be possible to leave the free market".
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