An ocean of offers in which thousands of Sardinians risk being shipwrecked. The energy market is ready for yet another revolution and in less than five months it will say a definitive farewell to the protected market to welcome the one with gradual protections. An insidious transition, which from next July 1st will be obligatory for the approximately 200 thousand Sardinians who have not yet made the leap to the market managed by private operators, preferring (some with awareness, some out of laziness) to remain in the regulated one, and for certain more reassuring verses, from the Arera.
The crossroads, however, is anything but easy to take. The applicable tariffs with gradual protections will not be made official before June, so users will have a few days to decide their fate, risking, in the event of a wrong choice, spending thousands of euros more.
The conditions
The gradual protection service will concern all non-vulnerable domestic customers (i.e. neither over 75 nor disabled) who in July 2024 will not have an electricity supplier on the free market. There will be two suppliers for Sardinia, both winners of the public auctions held by the Guarantor. Invoicing will be bimonthly, no guarantee will be required from the customer and the rates will be blocked for pre-established periods.
«The management of the gradual protection service in Sardinia, as in all of Italy, will start on July 1st and will last 33 months», explains Paolo Bellotti, Marketing and Sales Manager of A2A Energia, the supplier that won the auction a few days ago for the management of users in the districts of Cagliari, Oristano and Southern Sardinia who have remained in the protected market until now and are destined to move to the gradual protection service in less than five months. «During the period of validity of the gradual protection service, the winning companies of the auctions will apply a fixed fee deriving from the outcome of the auctions themselves equal to – 73 euros/year which represents an overall annual saving of approximately 130 euros compared to the current protected market . This fee will then be remodulated from year to year based on the number of users remaining in the different areas. In fact, it should be remembered that customers present in the gradual protection service after July 1st will only be able to move to the free market, but it will not be possible to do the opposite path, i.e. transfer from a free market operator to the manager of the gradual protection service in their territory ».
