Nothing to do. A week later, the new Bill decree is still postponed. The measure with which the government intends to set a ceiling on the price of gas to lower the costs of electricity and gas for families and businesses has not yet taken shape. Now the new deadline is Monday. But there is a “mystery” about the causes of the postponement, because this time everything seemed ready.
The mystery of the bill decree
It is not clear what complicated the genesis of the decree. First government sources had reported the need for some resolutions by Arera, i.e. the Regulatory Authority for energy, networks and the environment, but then the statement from Palazzo Chigi after the Council of Ministers indicated the reason for “further dialogue with the EU” and the “consequent checks by the Ministry of Economy and Finance”.
But what should be in the decree? The main innovation concerns the introduction of a limit on the price of gas used in thermoelectric power plants, with the aim of reducing the cost of electricity on the wholesale market. The mechanism arises from the preliminary political agreement reached on 16 October between the Italian government and the European Commission. The intervention would act on the formation of the price of electricity, which is particularly influenced by gas prices. It would therefore not be a generalized cap on the final tariffs applied to consumers, but a measure intended to contain the cost of energy produced by gas-fired power plants.
The application of the new system should start from 1 January 2027, with a reduction in electricity bills estimated at around 10%. The benefits would mainly affect families and businesses that have signed variable price supply contracts.
One of the most delicate aspects concerns covering the difference between the market price of gas and the maximum value envisaged by the new mechanism. The hypothesis under study envisages distributing this burden on two fronts: one part would be recovered through the system charges component, while another would fall directly on energy producers. The companies are not in favor of this and there has already been a “no” from Elettricità Futura, the association of Italian electricity companies.
The new postponement should serve precisely to clarify the mechanism. In short, it is not certain that we will arrive in time for Monday, when the government plans to resolve the stalemate and approve the measure in the Council of Ministers, together with an Infrastructure decree announced by Salvini.