ROME, MAY 26 – One in two Italians does not know how to read electricity and gas bills. This is stated by Consumerismo Non Profit and Assium (Italian Association of Utility Managers) who report the data emerging from a recent survey commissioned by Arera on consumer habits regarding energy bills. “52% of users only read the first page or quickly browse through all pages. One of the first elements that is consulted, after the amount to be paid, is the energy consumption in the billing period (29%). One in 5 (20.4%) checks consumption but with the aim of verifying the presence or absence of anomalous data. Finally, another fifth of the sample (18.2%) only controls the amount to be paid. For those who cannot understand the bill, the main obstacles are represented by the detail between fixed and variable costs (58.3%), the detail of the expense items (55.1%) and the energy tariffs applied in the period ( 52.3%) – highlight Assium and Consumerism – 70% of those interviewed finally believe that the adoption of a unified bill model can contribute to improving transparency, clarity and uniformity of contents”. “To respond to consumers’ need for clarity and orientation, together with Consumerismo we launched a signature collection for the introduction of a single price in kWh (energy) and cubic meter (gas) on the bill, as already happens for example for fuel, which collected 30,000 signatures in just two weeks and which will soon be delivered to parliamentary and government institutions”, concludes Assium president, Federico Bevilacqua.
