By Joseph M. Calisi ©2022 All Rights Reserved
Rome, Italy, Updated Feb. 22, 2022
As if natural gas and electric prices aren’t already high in Italy, they’re expected to skyrocket in a year. By 2023, electricity prices are expected to go up 131%, and gas prices rising by 94%. What’s fueling the appreciation is predicted by Arera in an Italian Senate hearing stated that “the surge in wholesale energy prices in 2021”.
Currently, inflation in January soared to 4.8% and sits at its highest level since 1996, with expensive energy costs leading the way.
They went on to say that , “The strong price volatility that characterizes this period makes, in the opinion of this Authority, particularly difficult to provide reliable forecasting elements” and even these prices, “…which remain above the historical price averages, however, show a relatively high volatility, with variations that tend to reflect changes in the prices of shorter-term products”.
Arera also said, “Despite the extraordinary interventions by the Italian Government, in the first quarter of 2022 over the first quarter of 2021 there was an increase of 131% for the typical domestic customer of electricity (from 20.06 to 46.03 euro cents / kWh, taxes included) and 94% for natural gas (from 70.66 to 137.32 euro cents per cubic meter, including taxes) “.
Arera in Italy is a free consumer information and assistance service. The simple and reliable comparator of electricity and gas offers, the fastest way to resolve disputes regarding connection, contract, bill, meter, breakdowns, complaints, rights, and safeguards services.
The military action in Ukraine is expected to drive these prices higher in connection with Germany suspending the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
These prices have reached a 10-year high since 2012, seem to follow a worldwide trend and are expected to go higher.
