An entrepreneur will tell you that the main problem of his company is the cost of energy. And, at the supermarket, exchanging two words in line at the cashier, the theme will always be the same: the dear life and the bills that at the end of the month take away sleep. At the base there is always the cost of energy.

Worries. Between January 2024 and January 2025 the national single price (Pun) of electricity grew by 44 percent.

For a family-family (with a consumption of 2,700 kWh per year and 3 kW of power), the shopping on the bill increased by 24% on an annual basis. Increases that pushed the government to launch the “bill decree”, with aid to companies and families with low income.

Spot interventions that do not solve the problem

But beyond the interventions necessarily spot, politics and the world of the company has been questioning for some time on how to structurally reduce the cost of energy.

The recurring mantra, in politics as among entrepreneurs, is the “misunderstanding”: that is, exceeding the system for which the price of energy is calculated on the most expensive source, the gas. In practice, if producing a certain quantity of energy with the gas costs one hundred and with renewable winds, the final price remains one hundred. And the same figure, one hundred, is remunerated both to those who produce with the gas, and to those who use renewables.

Faced with this apparent distorting – which is in force throughout the European Union and almost all over the world – it is not surprising that entrepreneurs (Confindustria) and politicians (including the secretary of the Democratic Party, Elly Schlein) has been invoking for some time: we pay one hundred gas energy because it costs one hundred, twenty that produced with renewables because it costs winds (following our example).

Because Elly Schlein’s proposal to lower the price of bills is “in fact” in fact

A proposal that, at first glance, seems even reasonable and the gain would seem evident. But it is an optical illusion, a simplification that reduces a complex slogan problem (we could say a gimmick with a “populist” flavor).

I disagree is not easy

As expert experts and experts (who speak with competence and without too many political or category conditioning explain), is a proposal that makes more than anything else and leaves the search for more structural and effective solutions in the background.

The reality is that the energy network is interconnected at European level, and for a single country it is almost impossible to move alone by adopting “personalized” strategies. It is no coincidence that no one has ever really questioned the agreements made years ago, and Brussels did not show the intention of changing the way.

Implementing decouping at national level would have meant leaving the integrated European market, with devastating economic consequences. Italy would end up detaching itself from the rest of the European Union regarding the energy market, a move that no responsible government can afford.

Bruno Leoni Institute

If politics wants to stop chasing shortcuts, he must accept complexity. The Bruno Leoni Institute, in a recent study by Luca Lo Schiavo and Carlo Stagnaro, explains that the real lever to reduce the costs of energy is not decipping (the misunderstanding), but the taxation of improper charges in the bill, that is, of the additional costs not related to the supply, but imposed by the legislation or for the management of the system. An uncomfortable measure for politics, because it requires courage and resources, but which would be structural and effective.

How to lower the bills (without slogans)

The same scholars indicate other routes: growth of renewables, more flexibility, increase in demand through electrification, in order to spread fixed costs on a wider audience of consumers. Less immediate and less expendable reforms in the election campaign, but with more lasting effects.

The point is all here: unfortunately, politics often or those who chase the artificial fires of magical potions for her, the useless ones throwing themselves in the election campaign. But reality is more multifaceted than a slogan.