Ukkram

I have no idea what this is about but I got an email stating that the deadline has been extended to choose my provider.

Is EDP a government energy provider that is to be disbanded and is to be privatized?
I don't understand it.

EMR

Portugal de regulated Electriciy and gas giving consumers a choice about 2 years ag0
EDP is by far the largest supplier and was the nationalised company.
As part of the process all EDP customers have to elect to stay with them and transfer to EDP commercial.
If you do not then they will assume that you have made arrangements to use a competitor and they could switch you off once the deadline is past ( As nearly happened to us ).
Apparently the EDP website is not that bad and you can arrange your new contract on line.
We just went to our local EDP office and it was done there and then
You get a discount for direct debits.
Do not ignore the email and act before the deadline expires.

Nettienut

Hi Ukkram,
EMR is right, you can change to EDP commercial online. It's easy and quick to do and as we already paid EDP by Direct Debit, they transferred details of that too. You do also get a small discount for paying by Direct Debit. And yes, do it before the new deadline you've received otherwise you may indeed have your electricity cut off
Hope that helps!

GeniB

Slight change. in that.There is now NO DEADLINE The Government has removed that proviso

What will happen is EDP will put up the tariffs on EDP Universal every three months! This will 'encourage ' people to change either to their commercial tariff,or to other providers

AFPOP Has put together a list-They are mainly in the North but shouldn't put you off
check out ERSE (Entidade Regulator dos Servicos Energeticos) Portal ERSE - Portal ERSE - Bem-vindo ao portal da ERSE

Red Eric

There IS a so-called "deadline" - a law was passed postponing the previous one until 31st December this year (previously 31st Dec 2014). The quarterly price reviews have been happening since the "liberalisation" was started - I think there's a slight change in that ERSE were previously conducting those and it's now to be the government.

However, there is no provision for coercing customers to change suppliers by cutting off their supply - where on earth did that come from The government has yet to announce what it intends to do about "legacy" customers (who currently make up around half the market) come the end of the year.

EMR

From personal experience.

We received a reminder letter and statements in March 2014 informing us that as we had not transferred our contract to EDP commercial our supply was at risk.
The original letters having gone astray.
I rang EDP who confirmed that as we would no longer after 31.03 have a contract with them we would be disconnected.
There was no automatic transfer of clients to the new company.
We spoke to our neighbours Portuguese and our poolman Portuguese showed them the letters and they confirmed what we had been told.
We then spent a frantic couple of hours going from the EDP sub branch in Lagoa, to the main office in Albufeira where all was resolved.
The balance charges from the " old " contract had to be paid there and then.
EDP had cancelled the direct debit on the old contract we had to set up a new one for EDP commercial.
The transfer of clients is based on potencia, we just happend to be in one of the first tranches of old EDP contracts.

Ukkram

My contract that I signed in July last year states this;

O objeto do presente contrato e o fornecimento de energia electrica pela EDP Comercial ao Cliente.

So I presume it says that I am a client of EDP Comercial so need to do nothing.

Red Eric

No - of course not!

Otherwise EDPSU would simply transfer all customers to EDP Comercial and the other suppliers would be fuming.

However, it would be BIG news if EDP were actually disconnecting customers simply because they hadn't changed suppliers - and there's been nothing in the PT news about it so far that I recall or can find online. Furthermore, there's no provision in law for them to do so - so I remain highly surprised and a teensy bit sceptical.

Many customers seem reluctant to switch at the moment due to lack of choice and negligible, if any, price difference

Red Eric

Correct - clients signing contracts after 1st Jan 2013 were automatically in the "liberalised" regime. No change required for you.

RoystonB

I will be transferring very soon...... This could only happen in Portugal.

Not saying that I know all the ins and outs, of de-regulation, but……………………..

A electrical supply company who is supplying ‘X’ number of customers for ‘X’ number of years could cut those customers off because they haven’t received notification from those customers that they have/want to move to another company. Ha Ha

Great, that’s what I love about Pt.

CAROL ELIZABETH

What is this all about? I don't remember getting any notification. I pay by direct debit and get bi monthly bills. They are reasonable so do I need to do anything? Is there an even cheaper tariff somewhere I should know about?

GeniB

It's what it says in the posts Carol...EDP has lost it's monopoly as the Electricity supplier for Portugal.There was a notification (and I agree only to some customers) that in order to remain on the tariff they had -or cheaper one They-the customer would have to change their contract with EDP. A deadline was set

The Government then intervened and removed that deadline.(Red is quite correct and it has simple been shifted,but the feeling is it will be shifted again should the need arise)
The customer /client now has several choices-to remain on the tariff they have.(If it's the Universal one it will change every three months) change to the commercial one.Or change supplier all together---see my post on the AFPOP advice

bejaboz

We transferred to EDP Commercial in December as with a 20.7 kva supply this was a deadline for the level of supply. Because we're in the UK, and the need to keep things simple, I did the transfer online within 24 hours in a most unexpected easy to follow procedure. Required use of Google Translate and some cutting and pasting but all in all easy to do and no visiting offices, even allowed electronic signature using a PDF document for the contract. The tariff rates are the same but we even received a 2% discount. Our direct debit and other details remained the same.

CAROL ELIZABETH

Thank you for explaining. Seems I need to check this out. We haven't even thought about our utility bills since we bought our place over 5 years ago. The estate agent sorted them all out for us helping us to set up the DD. We get paper bills which we really only have for notification but I don't remember getting anything else but anything that was all in Portuguese and did not look like a bill I would probably have thought was a circular. We do have a key holder who would I thought would tell us if our services got cut off. What if I do nothing?

GeniB

Can't obviously give you an answer to that Carol.If the above info is anything to go by-nothing.You will remain on whatever tarif you have a contract for.Likely to be Universal so your bill will possible go up every three months.Suggest you check it when your next in Portugal and take it from there.