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Sicilian micro and small businesses paid around 239 million euros more for electricity in 2025 than they would have incurred by applying the average prices of the European Union. This is the data that emerges from the analysis of the Confartigianato Research Office presented at the 22nd edition of the “Energies and Sustainability Confartigianato High School” convention, underway in Domus de Maria, Sardinia.
Sicily eighth among the Italian regions for the extra cost of electricity
Sicily thus ranks eighth among the Italian regions for extra costs of electricity, with a share equal to 6.5 percent of the national total. The increased cost incurred by Sicilian micro and small businesses is equivalent to 0.22 percent of the regional GDP in 2023. At a national level, the overall extra cost reaches 3.674 billion euros.
The problem arises from a price differential that continues to penalize smaller companies in particular. In Italy, small businesses pay 25.99 euro cents per kWh for electricity, compared to a European average of 22.04 cents, with a price 17.9 percent higher. Even more significant is the weight of the fiscal and parafiscal levy, which reaches 5.44 cents per kWh, 47.4 percent more than the European average. For companies with consumption of less than 20 MWh the tax gap reaches as much as 75.5 percent.
Messina has an extra cost of 37 million
The companies in the Catania area bear the brunt of the extra cost in Sicily, with 62 million euros. In second place is Palermo with 40 million, followed by Messina with 37 million. Followed by Syracuse with 29 million, Ragusa with 22 million, Trapani with 18 million, Agrigento with 15 million, Caltanissetta with 11 million and Enna with 4 million euros. The provincial data reported in the analysis therefore highlights a widespread situation across the entire regional territory, with a particularly significant impact on the main production centers of the island.
«The numbers on the cost of energy confirm a critical issue that our companies experience every day – states Emanuele Alessandro Virzì, president of Confartigianato Sicilia -. We are talking about an extra cost of 239 million euros which weighs on the competitiveness of Sicilian micro and small businesses and which is added to all the other factors that make it more difficult to produce, invest and create employment”.
«The issue is not only that of the price of energy – adds Virzì – but also that of how the charges on the bills are distributed. Confartigianato’s analysis shows that the smaller the company, the greater the disadvantage compared to the European average. It is a situation that needs to be rebalanced, because we cannot ask our companies to face the energy transition and at the same time burden them with costs that reduce their ability to compete.”
For Confartigianato, therefore, it is necessary to intervene on the system of fiscal and parafiscal charges of the electricity bill, rebalancing the load between the different size categories of companies. A request already made by the Confederation at national level, according to which small companies must not be penalized compared to more energy-intensive companies.
«Sicily needs companies capable of investing, innovating and tackling the energy transition – concludes Virzì -. This is why we need to create conditions of greater equality. The cost of energy cannot become a further brake on the growth of craftsmanship and micro and small businesses, which represent a fundamental component of the Sicilian productive fabric.”