Energy is once again weighing on the budgets of Italian families. In September, inflation accelerated to 4.2% on an annual basis, from 3.3% in August, driven mainly by increases in electricity, gas and fuel prices. Istat's preliminary estimates indicate that the prices of regulated energy, subject to protection regimes, increased by 25.9% compared to a year earlier. Unregulated ones, which include supplies on the free market and fuel, rose by 22.2%.
The problem is that these increases weigh on already high costs. This is demonstrated by the picture drawn up in July by Arera, the regulatory authority for energy, networks and the environment: the average price of electricity for Italian families, although it fell by 1.6% in 2025, remained 13% above the euro area average. Gas, on the other hand, increased in price by 4.8%, with prices 7% higher than the Eurozone average.
Now the return of tensions on electricity and gas prices raises a question that has already emerged forcefully in previous energy crises: how much can a family do to keep their bill under control? The options are different: we start from the choice of contract and supplier, to then reduce the home's needs and, when possible, directly produce part of the energy used.
Arera's findings say that 83% of the electricity consumed in 2025 by the domestic sector was purchased on the free market and 20.8% of families changed supplier. A dynamic that also concerns gas: in both sectors, the Authority notes, families on the free market paid more than those in protection services. In electricity, in particular, the free market recorded prices higher than the greater protection in all consumption classes. And among domestic electricity customers, fixed and variable prices have almost equivalent shares: 51% and 49%. The average supply component was respectively 236.69 and 232.35 euros per MWh, with a gap of less than 2%.
More than choosing a contractual formula, it therefore becomes important to compare the actual conditions of the offers and know your consumption profile. According to Arera, in fact, the choices of families on the free market are not yet guided by economic convenience: trust in the supplier's brand weighs heavily in the decision and the differences between the subscribed offers and the most convenient ones available on the market remain significant. Even the best contract can reduce the price of the energy purchased, but not the amount a home needs. This is where energy efficiency comes in.
However, on this front there is a counter-trend signal. The latest data from the Polytechnic University of Milan show that in 2025 Italian investments in energy efficiency, estimated between 53 and 62 billion euros, will grow for industry and tertiary sectors but not for residential: from 33-36 billion in 2024 they have gone to 24-27 billion in 2025.
After the years of the strong push of incentives for redevelopment, in particular Superbonus and Ecobonus, the Polytechnic observes that the current regulatory framework marked by remodulations, procedural complexities and poor predictability also has an impact. However, the slowdown in investments does not eliminate the savings potential offered by efficiency measures, starting with home air conditioning technologies.
Among the available solutions, heat pumps allow you to electrify heating and cooling, also reducing dependence on gas in homes that use a boiler. In a simulation by Enea, the National Agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable economic development, on an apartment of approximately 70 square metres, replacing an old boiler and an old air conditioner with a heat pump system reduces the overall costs of summer and winter air conditioning by 46% in Milan, 47% in Rome and 49% in Naples.
Then there is self-production. In 2025, photovoltaic production has grown by 25% and now represents 34% of electricity generation from renewable sources, which overall cover 48% of national production. For a family, installing panels means above all reducing, through self-consumption, the energy purchased from the grid. Storage systems can expand this possibility, conserving the energy produced during solar hours to use it when production and consumption do not coincide.
