The Conciliation Service of ARERA, the Italian Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and the Environment, has published its annual report 2020. Last year, the service received 18.602 requests for conciliation. Of these, a large majority were related to invoicing/billing issues, particularly in the electricity and gas sectors, while for prosumers issues were mostly related to net-metering (NEM). Almost 80% of the requests were accepted, of which 70% concluded with an agreement between parties, leading to 10.3 million euros in compensation being awarded to customers. Finally, 98% of the customers who answered the satisfaction survey were satisfied with the ARERA Conciliation Service.
Download ARERA Conciliation Service Annual Report 2020.
For more information, you can consult the webpage of ARERA.
BACKGROUND
ARERA’s Conciliation Service is a free tool for the protection of final electricity and gas customers, which facilitates the resolution of disputes with the operator (energy supplier and/or distributor), by allowing the parties to meet online or in a conference call in the presence of a conciliator acting as a facilitator of the agreement.
Before the Conciliation Service it is possible to make a mandatory attempt at conciliation that is necessary in order to access the ordinary justice system, that is to attempt to amicably resolve the dispute before going to the courts, as established by Resolution 209/2016/E/com (Testo Integrato Conciliazione -Tico).
Customers who are entitled to apply to the Conciliation Service are:
- For the electricity sector: all domestic and non-domestic customers connected to low voltage (LV) and medium voltage (MV);
- For the gas sector: all domestic and non-domestic customers connected to low pressure (LP).
In the case of dual fuel customers (joint supply of electricity and gas), it is sufficient to fall within one of the categories indicated above.
Prosumers (parties that are simultaneously consumers and producers of electricity) can activate the Conciliation Service for disputes with the electricity supplier or distributor or the GSE (the Italian Energy Services Manager).