Energy, Arera: ‘Overcoming the idea of ​​an already optimized free market, lighthouse on seller behavior’

“Much emphasis has so far been placed on strengthening the consumer’s ability to make an informed choice within the market. Yet, it would be wrong to imagine that the development of an efficient retail market can take place entirely by increasing the consumer’s ability to choose. or to understand the offers and mechanisms of a sector that certainly presents undeniable specificities. Above all it is useful to widen the attention from consumer behavior to those of retail companies, overcoming the idea that the free market exists in an already completed form and somehow ‘optimized’ “. This was stated by the president of the Arera, Stefano Besseghini in the course of his annual report to the Chamber on the state of services and on the activity carried out by the Authority. The recent monitoring report of the retail market, published in July 2021, notes the president of the Authority, “has brought to light several pieces of evidence that are certainly useful for framing the path, but I would like to focus on two of them for some consideration. The first is that for which it is evident that, in most cases, the end customer who switches to the free market chooses an offer that is economically less advantageous than the most protected service even if potentially, even in a reduced number, there are more convenient offers. from the analysis carried out on a sample of customers out of the greater protection, in the period July 2020 – June 2021, considering the indication relating to the contract signed with the new supplier and the estimate of the cost of the offer, as resulting at the time of the choice in the Offers Portal, the online comparator for Arera’s electricity and gas offers “. It also emerged, Besseghini underlines,” that here yes, all contracts signed by customers who have left the enhanced protection service are at a fixed price, signed after being contacted by a call center or a sales agent and in most cases have few additional services, generally not economically assessable and therefore not considered in the calculation of the annual expenditure carried out by the Offer Portal, the online comparator for the electricity and gas offers of Arera “. ‘Offer Portal does not yet have sufficient users’ The second consideration, explains the president of Arera,” it concerns the Offers Portal which does not yet have a sufficient number of users to be considered central in the selection process. It therefore appears quite clear that the choice is induced in the final customer with promotional and marketing tools that go beyond the simple evaluation of the commodity price “. The regulator, adds Besseghini,” must obviously question the reasons for a non-advantageous choice at the price, which could give the impression of a consumer unable to correctly assess the value of energy (and therefore the price) and therefore to defend himself from market pressures. In this context, the Authority has launched a series of initiatives aimed at strengthening consumer protection “. The main innovations, he notes,” concern the introduction of a summary sheet that summarizes all the information elements of the commercial offer (including a unique code identifying the offer that will allow easier comparability of the same) and highlights not only the estimated annual cost of the offer but provides for the introduction of synthetic price indicators, new important elements aimed at comparing offers “. , in the contractual phase, he stresses, “additional obligations have been envisaged in relation to communications to consumers in the event of unilateral contractual changes and automatic changes to the economic conditions that involve a change in the unit fees determined by the seller (for example, the expiry or reduction of discounts, the transition from a fixed price to a variable price e vice versa, etc.). This was substantiated in the revision of the Code of commercial conduct whose application took place for the pre-contractual part from 1 July last, while the contractual part will come into force from next October 1 “. Finally, he adds,” it is now finally in phase conclusion of the long process for the establishment of the List of electricity sellers “which” will hopefully lead to regulating the number of active sellers on the market (now hundreds and continuously increasing), ensuring that the authorized companies possess the minimum dimensional characteristics for operate in a sector where substantial financial commitments are required to guarantee supplies “.