Free market: few affordable offers for bills. Here's what Arera says

Arera analysed the billing market and found that, despite the increasing number of switches to the free market, there are still few affordable offers. Most offers are less convenient than protection, both fixed-price and variable-price offers. However, some cheaper offers are available, albeit to an extremely limited extent. This picture emerges from the latest update on the retail market prepared by the Authority chaired by Stefano Besseghini.

In March, according to Arera, in electricity, 74.4% of domestic customers (+2.4% compared to the September survey) and 84.9% (+2.4%) of low-voltage customers other uses were in this market. In the gas sector, where greater protection for non-vulnerable customers ceased at the end of 2023, domestic customers present on the free market are 85.9% (+17.1%) and 98.1% of condominiums for domestic use with consumption below 200 thousand cubic metres (+21.7%).

As far as geographical distribution is concerned, Arera explains that, as of March 2024, in most Italian regions and provinces a majority and significant share of customers, both domestic and non-domestic, had chosen a free market contract, for both sectors. In the six months since the last update in all regions, albeit at an uneven pace across the territory, for both sectors the percentage of customers who have left protection to choose a free market supply contract has grown. In the electricity sector in particular, with reference to domestic customers, the free market is preponderant in all regions and provinces of Italy. In the vast majority of regions and provinces over 69% of domestic customers are in the free market. In the gas sector, on the other hand, domestic customers are mainly supplied on the free market in all regions and provinces. In the vast majority of regions and provinces more than 81% of the households are in the free market.

According to the snapshot, then, the market continues to be very dynamic. In the electricity segment, in the period from January to March, domestic customers changed supplier at a rather high rate compared to previous years (6.6%), which if confirmed in the rest of the year would lead to an annual rate of 26.3% (compared to 20.2% per year in 2023). Approximately three quarters of these changes took place in the free market and therefore concern customers who had already left the greater protection scheme in the past. Turning to gas, the exchange rate was 5.5% (+1.77%). Almost nine out of ten domestic customers had already left protection in the past and chose to change seller again in the free market.

Among domestic customers, the most dynamic are those in the 18-29 age group, with a switching rate in the period January-June 2024 of 16.1%, in the electricity sector, and 11.1%, in the gas sector. . Slightly less dynamic but with still sustained and fairly homogeneous switching rates among the various age brackets are domestic servants between the ages of 30 and 69, whose switching rates per age bracket vary between 15.6% and 15.9% in the electricity sector and between 10.4% and 11.0% in the gas sector. In contrast, from the age of 70, switching rates are significantly lower in both sectors.