Arera: electricity bills up 37.3 per cent in the fourth quarter for vulnerable customers

In the fourth quarter of 2026, the electricity bill for the ‘typical’ vulnerable customer on the protected market scheme will rise by 37.3 per cent compared with the previous quarter. This has been announced by ARERA, which specifies that ‘the update applies solely to the approximately 3 million vulnerable customers currently under the enhanced protection scheme’.

The increase, explains a statement, “is due to the rise in electricity procurement costs, which reflects expectations of a rise in wholesale prices in the coming quarter, as well as the fact that, in the third quarter which has now ended, wholesale prices were higher than those estimated last June”. Indeed, ‘the instability of the international geopolitical landscape’ continues to have an impact, ‘affecting the prices of energy commodities and, in particular, natural gas, to which wholesale electricity prices remain closely linked’.

On the other hand, ‘dispatching costs’ are set to fall – the only item showing a decrease for the coming quarter (-2.2%) – ‘mainly because the autumn months present fewer challenges in terms of the adequacy of the electricity system compared with the summer and winter months’. General system charges remain unchanged. The annual cost for a typical vulnerable customer under the enhanced protection scheme will therefore stand at €665.38 for the period from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026, an increase of 9.3 per cent from 2025. From 1 October 2026, the reference price for electricity for the typical customer will be 43.43 euro cents per kilowatt-hour, including taxes.