Passed almost in silence, covered by the roar of the end of the electoral campaign and the outcome of the political elections, a small, great, revolution took place.

To be honest, the news is three, two excellent and one negative.

But let's go in order. 

Our energy authority,

Arera, has accepted a request promoted by the National Consumers Union

.

From October, gas bills for those under the enhanced protection regime, or 7.3 million domestic customers, can be monthly and no longer bimonthly.

Excellent news because it allows us to control future expenses more, making us understand how much we spend on gas month by month and to intervene promptly to tighten the belt, or close the taps.

This intervention has an impact in winter for those with gas heating.

The Arera, reads the official press release, has deemed it necessary to take into account "the need to provide for a greater frequency of billing as part of the protection service so as to allow end customers to know more frequently their spending and to redistribute bill payments over several months ".

If for now this initiative affects only one in seven citizens, it could be a first step for this initiative to be taken on by all operators in the sector and extended to all customers.

After all, that of billing on a quarterly basis is only a convention. 

But the real positive news is another.

Arera has decided to decouple the price of Italian gas from the price set in Amsterdam

, reference stock exchange for European gas prices.

What does this mean?

Not much at the moment, but leaves room for European price intervention policies no longer in the hands of the volatility of market speculations.

In other words, we move from taking as a reference no longer the forward prices of the Amsterdam wholesale market, the Ttf, but the average of the effective prices of the Italian PSV wholesale market.

Faced with the surge in gas prices (Monday 26 September falling below 173 euros, but reaching well over 300 euros per MWh in August), the Arera, the note also reads, has decided to break away from the European market and this in order to “promptly transfer to end customers the benefit of any European initiatives to contain the prices of energy commodities”. 

In fact, it should be remembered that several European countries, Italy in the lead, are taking steps to try to put the infamous “cap” on the price of gas.

Fourteen countries including Italy, Belgium, Greece and Poland have in fact prepared a letter for the EU Commission with a price cap proposal

so that it can be discussed at the Energy Council on Friday. 

The latest news is that

the rate update will be ex post and no longer ex ante

as has happened up to now, thus separating the price variations relating to electricity from those relating to gas.

This means that at the end of this month, in all probability Thursday 29, only the electricity tariffs will be updated for the usual three months (with the expectation of substantial increases, given that electricity is linked to the price of gas which in the the third quarter rose again), while it will be necessary to wait until the first days of November to establish the gas price for the month of October alone.

And so it will be for the months to come.

For Marco Vignola, head of the energy sector of the National Consumers Union, in this way "it will be possible to avoid making consumers pay the crazy price of gas they had in August that would have sent household budgets into a tailspin". 

And here comes the sore point: having chosen to consider the price ex post rather than ex ante can have negative consequences for consumers.

Arera provides that, in the event of a "recalculation" of the amounts of the cost of the raw material previously invoiced, "operators are required to inform customers accordingly".

In practice, if the invoice received at the end of the month does not reflect the real trends in the price of gas, any price differences will be settled in the next bill.

But this novelty, according to non-profit Consumerism, implies that: "Transparency is completely eliminated, because

consumers will not be able to know the price of gas in advance, but will only find out after consuming it

". 

And, in the meantime, new increases in electricity and gas prices are in sight.

The Arera has redone the accounts and at the end of the month will announce the adjustment for the bills.

We remind you that, according to Assoutenti's estimates, every Italian family finds itself paying 1,231 euros more than in 2020 only for electricity and gas bills (in the first 9 months of the year, therefore without the new adjustment), with the for energy, which rose overall by + 92.7% in the two-year period 2021-2022.

In 2022, due to the increase in tariffs and despite the measures adopted by the Government, total expenditure on energy will therefore rise to 2,558 euros per household (1,516 euros for gas, 1,042 euros for electricity).

And the association's forecasts for 2023 are far from optimistic.

"Considering the