Electricity and gas: the public site that compares offers, so you need not trust cold callers

Electricity and gas offers are compared in one place, and it is not the one that phones you in the evening: it is the Portale Offerte, a public and free website.

It is run by Acquirente Unico — a public company — on behalf of ARERA, the authority that regulates energy, networks and the environment. It was created by law 124 of 2017, the same one that ended the old protected-tariff services.

The address is ilportaleofferte.it. There is nothing to pay and nothing to buy there: you just look.

Why it is not a comparison site like the others

Private comparison sites earn money when you sign: they show offers from the companies they have deals with, and they rank them accordingly.

The Portale Offerte does not. It carries every offer on the market aimed at households and small businesses, including those from companies with no interest in advertising. Whoever runs it earns nothing from it: that is the reason it exists.

What you need in order to compare

Not much, and it is all on your bill:

• the municipality or postcode of the supply address;
• whether you want electricity, gas or both together;
• whether you want a fixed price — unchanged for a period — or a variable one that follows the market;
• how much you use in a year: on an electricity bill it is in kWh, on a gas bill in standard cubic metres (smc).

There is also a box for whether you are a vulnerable customer: it covers, for instance, people over 75, people with disabilities and users of life-saving equipment, and it changes the conditions you are entitled to.

With SPID or CIE the comparison becomes real

If you log in with SPID or with your electronic identity card, the site takes your actual consumption — the figures recorded for your supply — and fills the fields in for you.

That is the difference between a quote based on invented numbers and one based on yours. If you have not yet worked out how to log into public sites with your identity card, we explained it here: dealing with public offices yourself using the CIE.

The three families of offers

The portal shows three different things, and it helps to know they are not the same:

• free market: each company sets the price it wants, and changes it often;
• PLACET offers: free-market offers, but the contract terms are written by the authority, identical for everyone — only the price differs. They are the easiest to compare, because you compare one number instead of twenty clauses;
• protected services, where they still apply.

Whoever phones you is not the portal

This is the part to remember when the phone rings.

The Portale Offerte calls nobody, sends no salespeople to your door and asks you to sign nothing. Anyone phoning claiming to be «from the authority», «from the protected market» or «from your supplier» in order to change your contract is none of those things.

Two rules that always hold:

1. Never give your POD or PDR code over the phone. They are the numbers identifying your meter — they are on the bill — and with them a contract can be activated in your name.
2. A contract signed at a distance or at your door can be cancelled within 14 days, with no explanation and at no cost. If you said yes and regret it, you have two weeks.

How to do it, in practice

1. Take your latest bill and find the annual consumption.
2. Go to ilportaleofferte.it and log in with SPID or CIE if you have them.
3. Compare using the estimated annual cost, not the price per kWh: that is the number that can be compared across different offers.
4. If you switch, you cancel nothing: the new supplier sends the termination to the old one. And the power never goes off during the changeover.

Got a bill that does not add up, or has someone switched your contract without asking? Tell us in the Money and bills section of the community.