The reference price of gas for the vulnerable domestic customer, for the month of May 2024, is equal to 103.66 euro cents per cubic meter (+3.1% on April). He makes it known Arera in its monthly update relating to the component of the gas price to cover supply costs, applied to customers in the vulnerability protection service. For the month of May, which saw wholesale prices rise compared to those recorded in April, the price of the gas raw material alone, for customers in the vulnerability protection service, was equal to 32.99 euros per megawatt hourto. Therefore, from January 2024, the gas protection service has been replaced by the vulnerability protection service, intended only for vulnerable domestic customers.
“Expected increase, considering the increase in prices in the wholesale markets. Luckily the thermal season was already over in May and, therefore, the real effect is null. In any case, despite this increase, the pieces of the protected person remain more convenient of almost all the offers currently present on the free market inserted on the Arera Offers Portal, on which dedicated offers and those no longer active but still available to the consumer should also be inserted”, he states Marco Vignola, vice president of the National Consumers Union.
According to the study by the National Consumers Union, in fact, for the new typical user who consumes 1100 cubic meters of gas, +3.1% means spending 34 euros (34.32 euros) more on an annual basis. The total expenditure in the next twelve months (not, therefore, according to the rolling year, but from 1 May 2024 to 30 April 2025, in the hypothesis of constant prices), thus rises to 1140 euros, which added to the 546 of the light of the typical family, determine a total expense of 1686 euros. Therefore, if the price of gas rises today by 3.1%, in comparison with pre-crisis times, i.e. compared to the protection market price of May 2021, based on the new historical series reconstructed according to the new typical customer who consumes 1100 cubic meters of gas, the price is 40.8% higher today, while compared to the peak in May 2022 it is 16.4% lower.
“The weakest users who fall within the vulnerability are suffering from increases in wholesale gas prices, to the point that the May rates result higher than 13.4% compared to those in force in the same period last year, with an increase in spending equal to +134.5 euros per family on an annual basis – states the honorary president and energy manager of Assoutenti, Furio Truzzi – But the most serious thing is that on the free gas market rates are not falling as expectedand competition between operators is struggling to take off, with the consequence that Italians continue to pay a high price for the gas that reaches their homes”.
