Bills, from September the new supplier manages the debit on the current account

Customers who switched from greater protection to gradual protection on 1 July are currently receiving letters from the operators to whom they were assigned in the auctions held in February. The initial 4.5 million, who were in greater protection in February, had been divided among seven operators, among whom Enel and Hera had won most of the users, around 2.8 million. The other operators are Edison, Illumia, Iren, A2A and Eon.

What happened in the four months that separated the auctions from the handover of customers to the seven operators on 1 July last is that between 20 and 30 per cent of customers migrated to the free market, probably solicited by operators other than those to whom they had been assigned. According to some operators, this switch has affected around one million customers previously in the greater protection category. And this in spite of the fact that the tariffs that gradual protection customers will pay for the next three years are lower than market rates. During the call with analysts to present the accounts for the first six months of 2024, Enel's CEO Flavio Cattaneo said that the electricity group had also suffered an erosion of customers allocated through auctions, even if the exit rates were lower than the market average.

But let us return to what is happening these days and what will happen in the next two months. Another important novelty, and hitherto unheard of in the electricity billing sector, will be the portability from one operator to another of the debiting of the amount to be paid on the current account for those who have made bank direct debits for their bills. In reality, this is not a very large group: according to estimates, bank direct debits among users of the former 'maggior tutela' had a prevalence of 20 per cent compared to the total number of beneficiaries. In spite of the complexity of this procedure, a solution has been found to put it into practice: the Energy Authority approved a resolution in recent days, drawn up on the basis of indications provided by the Bank of Italy, in which it sets out the operating methods to enable this process. Basically, for the customer, it will mean that if until June he was a customer of A2A, for example, and is switching to Enel, he will receive a bill from the latter operator towards the end of September, which will directly debit the account in his favour. The 7 operators have already received the codes for the new customers' positions, but the actual migration will take place in September. The customer will therefore not be asked for a new account debit authorisation. If he does not want to switch to the new operator, he will have to take steps to revoke his direct debit and will have to choose to switch to another operator, but will then be obliged to switch to the free market.

The 3.5 to 4 million customers remaining in graduated protection will have to be careful what happens when the new operator sends the first bill. The latter will have every interest in retaining their loyalty by bringing them onto the free market: graduated protection is a service, the free market represents an operator's customer base. It will therefore happen that the operator will ask the graduated protection customer for permission to receive commercial and informative material. The aim is to move the customer to the free market, perhaps by offering other products such as fibre or energy sales and presenting all-inclusive final tariffs for these services. Everyone can choose as they see fit, but it should be remembered that graduated protection tariffs continue to be cheaper.