ENI offers 30 per cent off energy bills while Q8 joins petrol and diesel cap in Italy.Days after capping petrol and diesel prices, Italy's biggest energy companies have turned to household gas and electricity bills, with the government urging others to follow.Italian energy giant ENI announced on Tuesday that its retail arm Plenitude will offer a 30 per cent discount on gas and electricity, compared with its main fixed-price offer. The price will be locked for two years. ENI says the discount is worth about €100 a year on gas and €100 on electricity, or about €200 for households taking both. It applies from 1 October to customers who sign up by 24 October, and existing customers can switch. ENI says it will absorb recent rises in supply costs. The figures rest on ENI's own assumptions, such as a household using 2,000 kWh of electricity and 600 cubic metres of gas a year. The discount covers the unit price of energy consumed, not fixed fees, network costs, charges or taxes. A few hours later after ENI's announcement, energy provider Enel said its "Digital luce" two-year fixed-price electricity offer, available since April, is about 50 per cent below the wholesale price, even counting the deals launched by competitors. It puts the saving for an average household using 2 MWh a year at €200. Enel has about 11 million retail customers in Italy and ENI about nine million. Q8 joins the fuel cap Q8 Italia, owned by Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, will introduce a price cap on petrol and diesel for 30 days from 1 October, saying it is accepting the government's invitation. It has not published a maximum price, saying only that the cap will apply "with a modular approach". ENI's cap, in force since 28 September, is €1.99 a litre for petrol and €2.19 for diesel. IP, owned by Azerbaijan's Socar, has followed with a phased rollout. If applied across all three networks, the caps could cover about half of Italy's petrol stations. ENI's announcement triggered an initial rush to fill up, with long queues at pumps in many cities, reportedly leading some stations to run out of fuel. Why now Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, speaking in Prague, said international crises "we did not produce" are weighing heavily on household budgets. She thanked ENI, IP and Kuwait for backing the fuel initiative and said she hoped other companies would "give a hand" on bills too. Enterprises Minister Adolfo Urso also called for other operators to follow. Prices are the immediate pressure. Regulator Arera has announced that electricity bills for about three million vulnerable customers will rise 37.3 per cent in the fourth quarter, citing higher wholesale costs linked to geopolitical instability. European Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen has warned of a difficult winter with very high prices. Analysts say the government is shifting from spending public money to persuading companies to absorb costs, after tax cuts on fuel absorbed billions of euro, with consumer groups claiming the discounts show energy companies' wide profit margins. Industry body Unem said the caps, worth 15 to 17 cents a litre, cannot be permanent and called for a new European energy strategy.

Days after capping petrol and diesel prices, Italy's biggest energy companies have turned to household gas and electricity bills, with the government urging others to follow. Italian energy giant ENI announced on Tuesday that its retail arm Plenitude will offer a 30 per cent discount on gas and electricity, compared with its main fixed-price offer. The price will be locked for two years. ENI says the discount is worth about €100 a year on gas and €100 on electricity, or about €200 for households taking both. It applies from 1 October to customers who sign up by 24 October, and existing customers can switch. ENI says it will absorb recent rises in supply costs. The figures rest on ENI's own assumptions, such as a household using 2,000 kWh of electricity and 600 cubic metres of gas a year. The discount covers the unit price of energy consumed, not fixed fees, network costs, charges or taxes. A few hours later after ENI's announcement, energy provider Enel said its "Digital luce" two-year fixed-price electricity offer, available since April, is about 50 per cent below the wholesale price, even counting the deals launched by competitors. It puts the saving for an average household using 2 MWh a year at €200. Enel has about 11 million retail customers in Italy and ENI about nine million. Q8 Italia, owned by Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, will introduce a price cap on petrol and diesel for 30 days from 1 October, saying it is accepting the government's invitation. It has not published a maximum price, saying only that the cap will apply "with a modular approach". ENI's cap, , is €1.99 a litre for petrol and €2.19 for diesel. IP, owned by Azerbaijan's Socar, has followed with a phased rollout. If applied across all three networks, the caps could cover about half of Italy's petrol stations. ENI's announcement triggered an initial rush to fill up, with long queues at pumps in many cities, reportedly leading some stations to run out of fuel. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, speaking in Prague, said international crises "we did not produce" are weighing heavily on household budgets. She thanked ENI, IP and Kuwait for backing the fuel initiative and said she hoped other companies would "give a hand" on bills too. Enterprises Minister Adolfo Urso also called for other operators to follow. Prices are the immediate pressure. Regulator Arera has announced that electricity bills for about three million vulnerable customers will rise 37.3 per cent in the fourth quarter, citing higher wholesale costs linked to geopolitical instability. European Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen has warned of a difficult winter with very high prices. Analysts say the government is shifting from spending public money to persuading companies to absorb costs, after tax cuts on fuel absorbed billions of euro, with consumer groups claiming the discounts show energy companies' wide profit margins. Industry body Unem said the caps, worth 15 to 17 cents a litre, cannot be permanent and called for a new European energy strategy.