[lultimouomo]

The standard home contract in Italy is 3.3kW, at 230V it's less that 15 amps for a resistive load. The meter will allow you to go over the allotted power for some time before disconnecting you though (the amount of time is inversely proportional to how much your going over, and I don't think you can ever go over 4kW).

Heating and stoves are gas based (ovens usually not though); going over the limit is not usual, the only common problem is when using air conditioning in summer which is becoming more widespread, and so are higher power contracts (we're not talking more than 6kW, though).

According to my utility, I consume annually 2660kWh, that is 300W average, much less than the 1.2KW for an American household.

Note that for home contracts the limit (and billing) is on power, not amps, so using inductive or reactive loads will not penalize you.

[tecleandor]

Here in Spain we're paying a lot for the power allotted to the contract, being around 30 to 40% of the bill.

So, I'm paying around 20€ (before taxes) just for having a 5.75kW contract, and then I have to add my kWh consumption. So reducing your consumption doesn't reflect that much on your bills.

Is that the same on Italy ?

[bonzini]

Here it is 2 €/month/kW, my total bill was 40-50 €/month before I had a solar roof installed. I consumed about 400 W on average in a house (with solar the consumption is up by 60 W because of the inverter, but I save 30 to 70% plus I can sell a little surplus).

[dreamcompiler]

Italy used to be strange in that there were two electric feeds per house: One for low-power loads and one for high-power loads. Is that system gone now?

[alanfranz]

That's internal, right now. You don't get two lines from the grid. But you have multiple internal lines, and usually one 10A lines is mostly for the lights, other include more hungry appliances.

[frosted-flakes]

You mean there are multiple circuits inside the house? Isn't that totally normal? My small bungalow has 24 circuits on 200 amp service, plus a subpanel feeding the shop and sauna.