Belgium, (Brussels Morning Newspaper) Tele-heating is a system that supplies heat, either in the form of steam or hot water, from a central source to a group of buildings. Throughout Europe, it provides energy to up to 3.549 districts, and according to Euroheat&Power Latvia and Denmark are leaders in the EU ranking providing heat to more than 60% of their population. In Italy this system is more common in the North of the country, the district heating systems in operation are just under 340, for a total extension of the networks of over 5,000 km and 9.8 GW of installed power.
There are 280 municipalities with at least one network, including Milan, Turin, Genoa, and Brescia. Most of these plants are powered by fossil fuels and only 18% from renewable energy sources and waste. More than 6% of Italian citizens use tele-heating to warm up their buildings but, according to a survey published by Area, the Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks, and Environment, this cost is unfair and exaggerated. A big rip-off.
The pricing criteria are wrong and oblige consumers to pay even higher bills than those who use gas to heat their homes. According to the Arera this price differential creates distortions to the correct functioning of the market. Customers are not informed on the real costs or on how to exit from the service. It is more convenient for citizens to change the heating system than to keep the old one.
Municipalized companies, historically created to ensure affordable public services and now transformed into profit-making companies, accumulate extra profits. In many areas of the Regions Lombardy, Piedmont and Liguria, the prices of district heating have doubled if not tripled and seem to be higher than the cost of a gas boiler, which should be the maximum price applicable. As a result, insolvencies have increased and many families risk to leave their home.
I will address a written question to the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, to assess whether the distortions to the proper functioning of the market, denounced by Arera, undermine European rules.
The time has come to intervene. The public shareholders of Italian companies A2A and Iren should authorise the instalment of payments and they should grant the Bonus to the most needy families and suspend the secondments. In addition, it is essential that these companies report to the relevant municipal councils on the critical issues identified in the Arera report and the measures that they intend to take to resolve them.
We will not give up and I will involve the city councillors of the 5 Star Movement to present any form of inspection union in the affected municipalities. We call on the Italian government, finally, to lower the VAT on district heating and make it similar to that applied to gas which is at 5%. In Milan instead 25.000 users of district heating pay 22% VAT, while another 198.000 pay 10%. The Arera’s proposals is a good starting point because, through a new definition of tariffs, they hit the scandalous extra profits and aim to bring fairness and transparency in the bills.
We will do everything to protect citizens who are victims of this natural monopoly.
