www.huffingtonpost.it // august 2013
In 2012 the electric bills have been loaded wth 10 and a half billion euros of incentives for renewable energy sources. Who benefits is who works in the green industry, at least indirectly. I do not intend to defend the reasons for incentives, nor stigmatize mistakes. I will look at the facts: the average charge in a bill is over 4 cents per kilowatt hour. Aside from second homes and families with high consumption, users most affected are small and medium-sized enterprises. On the other hand there are a number of exempted consumers like those of railways and a number of big businesses. Cutting bills is a cornerstone of the relaunch of the industrial sector. But the proposals, from a further opening of the gas market, the modification of charges between categories of users, the extension of charges of auto consumption (a blatant stupidity), have limited the short-term impact. If you want to make a big difference then you need to act with a direct cut of the administration part of the bill: the rational way to do this is to transfer the renewable energy incentivation costs , with the introduction of a carbon tax.