wellinever

I have a smart meter to my house, but it aint very smart as not connected and needs reading manually to avoid estimates from EDP.
So each month if I am here I read on meter between 16th and 18th and input those figures online in my account.
Why is it that sometimes the bill i then receive contains those figures that I gave, but other times the figures they used in the invoice are not the same?
As I understood it what they do is to take your figure then based on how much you have used over the previous month add in an estimate of what you would use by the end of the month.....yes as usual Portugal has to make things more complicated.
But on my last invoice they made an estimate (empresa), as I forgot to read it, which is stated on the electricity reading page, but then used numbers for my bill that were only marginally higher than the figures used on the previous bill, and it was for February, the coldest month for ages.
So now after a very mild March I am gonna get the highest bill I have ever had.......could it be that the cost has changed during that time????

One other thing.....does anyone know if you can change the potencia on line (I appreciate that someone wold need to come out to change the meter or whatever, but can the request be made online? At now what is €0.60 + IVA /day fpr 10.4Kw and with my maybe not being here for a few months I will change the potencia down to 3.45kw (just fridge running) at €0.25+IVA /day, saving €30 over 90 days, and then put it back on my return....I hate giving more money than necessary to these companies for nothing at all.

coleio

Strange.
Some peeps just use a bit of paper and occasionally jot down a number but manage to send/juggle a "reading" every month which, over period of time averages out. Why make up problems instead of thinking?

wellinever

Sorry mate.....don't understand a word you just said

liveaboard

they can send a person out to reset the potentia; the mains switch normally used here has an adjustment dial built in.
However; there might be a fee that would take all your fun away.

The meter readings; me to, it's always a hassle.

RichardHenshall

In no particular order:

A reading labelled 'empresa' is not an estimate, it's a reading made by the company. It may be a human meter-reader or it may be self-reported by your smart meter.

Your invoice will stipulate the dates between which your reading should be submitted. The dates are different for different people and may change with a new contract. In my experience the later in that window you submit the reading, the more likely it would be used without a further estimation. If you submit readings outside the window they will be used to correct past estimates and to guide new estimates. With a smart meter there is no need or benefit to submitting readings.

Your smart meter must be connected - it's letting electricity into your house isn't it? Our account seems to collect a reading automatically on 7th of the month and our bill mostly coincides. Our bill is sometimes based on readings from the 8th of the month, in which case an additional reading is also collected from the meter. This completely eliminates estimates. This month's bill is based on the 7th's reading but it still reported the 8th's reading too!

Yes. Go to the 'Alterações ao contrato' section of EDP Online and click on the pencil icon beside the current figure for POTÊNCIA CONTRATADA. Nominally no charge but if you keep on changing it they may get grumpy. It may depend on how long you have been in contract.

liveaboard

The smart meters installed over the last few years are made to communicate with a server through the powerlines; before it can work, the receiving system has to be installed at the local transformer.
That's what the installer told me anyway.
In our case, the transformer has to be replaced, and since the poles are old, they have to be changed, and since we're in the nature reserve, when the poles are changed the lines have to be re-routed along the roads instead of crisscrossing the countryside.

So I'll be submitting many more meter readings I suppose.

RichardHenshall

I was told something similar but purely from the perspective of EDP being to remotely control, for example, the level at which the system would trip due to exceeding the potência contratada. The EDP 'engineers' (plural, smelling of drink, well before lunch!) had turned up to adjust the trip settings, a process I had assumed would be handled remotely. However the meter readings do seem to work much as I would have expected.

sportpix

For some strange reason EDP decided to change my date of reading from the 15th of the month to the second of the month. No idea why. Clearly I don’t have a smart meter

wellinever

When the house was being built the builder insisted that I had a potencia of 20.7Kw...........dunno why, cause he never used any serious energy consuming equipment, but I went along with just in case he needed it.
As soon as the house was ready and building stopped I went to EDP office to ask for the lower amount of 10.38kw. (for me, more than enough for day to day use).
After I had been in the office I guess a week later a bloke turned up and messed about in the meter box.
He told me whilst it was a smart meter it did not work as one.......so I dont know.
Certainly this urbanisation is 30 years old in infrastructure terms and 3 kms from any town. No fibre, bad mobile signals.
But I will try to do the change online and see what happens.
Lets face it, if I am not here, and only leave fridge freezer on at 50w/hr usage I hardly need 10kw of power.
All other trip switches being off. (have to leave the power to the gates on or cant get back in).
Of course in estimating an unscrupulous company (knowing an increase in cost was coming in) could keep pre increase figures down, but make it up, after the price increase came in
Why does Portugal find it necessary to have different Potencias anyway, unlike say UK that does not use this system of charging for a limited amount at a time?.

toots sweet

Goodness knows they are a law unto themselves. Just actually been on their website and its like looking for water in the desert.
Just trying to find out the start date of the new summer schedule as we are on the tri-horario tarif and we always try to use the wash machine and dishwasher at the lowest rates,but can i find the dates.?.nope.

RichardHenshall

Hora legal is defined here and the summer and winter periods effectively coincide with the clocks changing in spring and autumn.

It was a challenge to find, though to be fair to EDP it was where you might expect at https://www.edp.pt/particulares/apoi...-mim/faq-4823/ but the main part of the graphic above was hidden by my Adblock Plus!!

toots sweet

Yes ..I've got the table but just couldn't find the summer/winter start dates. I had thought of the changes in the clocks but thanks for confirming it. Simple thing for EDP to do though for us duds!

SgtTroy

Guys, EDP are not the only one on the market.
You can shop around, there are also comparison sites.
As soon as I lowered the potencia and switched to another provider the bills got lower by at least 10%, all other factors being equal.
In terms of calculating the potencia, there is a formula somewhere online and it refers to the sum of the power in a point of time when the maximum number of appliances operate.
Reducing it from 9.2(?) to 4.6 hasn't lead to any problems, simply because there are never more than 3 appliances operating at the same time at home and their combined potencia was around 3.2, still below the contracted 4.6 and nearly three times less than the previous 9.2.

liveaboard

I haven't heard of the meter also being used as a current limiting device; on my installation, that's done at a separate switch which is between the meter (now "smart") and my breaker box.
The switch can be operated manually, but will trip at an adjustable preset (your "potencia").
It can be reset (turned back on) by the user. It's just troublesome.

RichardHenshall

Our smart meter has the current limiting built-in and can be reset manually if it trips. When it was installed they just left the original trip switch, in series. Now that my contracted potência is half the original setting the new meter definitely trips first. It would be more problematic if it was the other way round.