nicktonight

Has anyone reduced their electricity bills by changing provider?

I have never particularly liked ENEL and had a look at my bills this morning. They claim in the accompanying email that their bills are " chiara, sintetica e trasparente"
Well this month I paid about €120. Out of this my consumption or "Spesa per l'energia" was €30 as I wasn't here very much! There is a fixed cost of €28 for the meter (I have 2 as I have 2 appartments side by side) and a very odd sum of €28 for Spesa oneri di sistema (A). I am also paying for a card called Carta EnelMia that I never asked for and that I have to go to the post office and send a recommeded letter for a disdetta if I want to stop paying for. My bill also includes the TV licence of €16
Some companies advertise that you only pay for consumi so perhaps I can reduce my bill to €30 + licence = €46
Any advice about best alternatives would be gratefully received

modicasa

Last December the govt passed a sneaky little decree, so its only going to get worse. At the moment, you are paying for you consumption, then you subsidise the biggest firms inItaly so they have cheap electricity, pay for the big companies to go green, and pay for the nonexisteent maintenance of the grid. From next year you will also pay for the debts of the non paying customers. This will add up to 45% to the smallest bills. All these fixed charges you will pay anyway - whichever provider you are with, so changing supplier will only actually tweak your actual consumption by a euro or so.
If you look for Dataroom on the Corriere.it website there was a very good piece on it a month or so ago.

Geordieborn

Which part of old ENEL are you with i.e. what is the Company on the bill heading? Also does it indicate it is an estimated bill? For the first time ever we has an estimated bill in January. As we were not here, this months bill indicates a large deduction. Modicasa posted here or elsewhere about a year ago about the big increase to bills (in Jan17 I think). If I recall correctly when ENEL split off, not long after it turned out the standning charges had indeed increased by a lot, but the unit cost actually went down. If true then those that don't use the place all the year around e.g. holiday homes would end up paying a lot for nothing!
Sorry I can't help in offering an alternative, best of luck in finding one.

nicktonight

On my bill it just says ENEL - enel energia. A friend on a yacht here in Palermo gave me an interesting talk about the giant improvements in solar energy - he has just changed his solar panel and his new one which cost only €200 provides all the energy he needs for his boat including the computer and navigation system all year round (charging a battery for the night) and produces 4 times more energy than his old panel. As I have hot water, cooking and heating on gas I could just install a single small panel on one of my balconies? It would not be more unsightly than the air conditioning units. Can you run a microwave oven off solar power? Apparently the costly element is the electrical system converting the low voltage solar energy into the domestic system

Kenzo14

Can't really help as our landlord is sneakily still using the servizio elettrico from when his now deceased father had the house, that was 5/6 years ago!

How long have you been in Palermo Nick? Ive been all around the province for the last 5 years Castelbuono, Cefalu and now Altavilla Milicia, how are you finding palermitano life?

Kenzo

philat98

It doesnt encourage the companies to collect the unpaid bills if they know the other customers will pay up. I bet the power companies are very happy.

I changed from ENEL to ENI a few months ago but ENEL haven't stopped billing.

Geordieborn

Sounds to me a good idea to go solar..