battlezone123

I am b****y mad. Back last November someone from the electricity company came to our house to price up for upgrading our electricity (from a building supply 2.4kva) to 13kva. We received a letter telling us it would cost 1,650 euros which we paid by bank transfer in January. They informed us it would take about a couple of months for them to come and do the upgrade. Since the beginning of May we began chasing to find out why it had not been done - but no one returned our telephone calls.

Today we had a telephone call from the electricity company asking for our bank account number as they wanted to refund the monies we had paid. When we asked why they informed us that they had decided we had enough electricity and we did not need anymore! The house is 600sqm and is therefore not small.

All the telephone conversations have been done with a Spanish friend so nothing is being lost in translation. I cannot believe they can do this.

Before I go and pay a personal visit to the electricity company and give them a piece of my mind - anyone got any advice?

SoJohn

Don't know. Look on the bright side? You just got 1650 Euros richer.

I'm assuming, of course, you haven't been having problems with your electricity?

glad 2 b back

Yeah at least you're getting the money back

SoJohn

Of course, we both could be overlooking the fact that they really do need the upgrade

battlezone123

No we haven't. But we have got a building supply which is situated outside. My OH, who was an electrician in the UK, has wired it up so we can have power inside the house. But you cannot boil a kettle if the washing machine is on, and so on and so on. When we knew we were getting the electricity I bought a 110cm ELECTRIC range cooker (I cannot stand gas cookers) and the main oven alone takes 2kva. The cooker has got three ovens, a grill and 5 plates on the hob. OK I am not going to use all the cooker at the same time but that is not the point. The electricity company gave a price to upgrade, we paid the money and now they have changed their minds. I tell you if it wasn't for the children coming home from school in a minute I would be down the electricity company now giving them a few choice words.

SoJohn

Ah, I see the problem. No idea how to resolve that. Seems very strange since you have paid for it to be done. Any kind of appeal process?

Fred James

You should have a Boletin describing in detail your electricity installation and it will show the maximum power that is possible with your installation.

It may be that your installation is not capable of handling the power that you need for your appliances.

If so you are looking at an expensive upgrade.

battlezone123

Yes that is what I have got. When we applied for an upgrade we asked for 15kva but after a site visit we were informed we could only have 13kva. We were sent a breakdown of figures of how they arrived at the figure of 1,650 for installation and a map of the area showing where the transformer was in relation to our property. We paid the money in January and have just been waiting since for the upgrade.

Fred James

15 kva is a 3 phase supply.

Do you have 3 phase and what does it say on your Boletin about your maximum power?

Reme

Hi,

Please correct me if I'm mistaken but in Spain you need to justify why you need more electricity power in order to get the upgrade. Apologies if you have already done this and I missed it in your story.

In England you can use as much electricity as you like, as far as you pay for it at the end of the month. However in Spain they keep a very close eye as they dont want people setting up small 'illegal' factories or thousands of lamps used to grow the wrong type of plants

If you friend is spanish, check that you have provided as much info as possible when you applied for the upgrade.

Sorry to hear that they denied it to you.

Good luck!!!

Solarwhizz

I am a little confused, as 13KVA seems an odd supply and doesnt seem to fit in with the "norm",, IE 3.3 (single phase)is usually seen as the smallest, with the next upgrade to 5.5 (single Phase), then should you require a higher input this is usually translated to a 5.5 at 3 phase. it is rare for a domestic premises to have more that 5.5 3phase. There is generally no restriction on getting up grade providing the power is available within the local infrastructure, but you will pay more on fixed charges for higher capacity.,
It sounds very much as though your local company has got a problem with the local supply infrastructure ( IE a lot of new builds in locality may have absorbed the surplus power), and they have therefore concluded that at this time they have not got enough to supply you, in this case, you can rattle as much as you can, but if it isnt there , there is not a lot they will or can do, until something comes along to fund an infrastructure upgrade, IE a miniurbanisation for example). The supplies quoted above are from the area I live in and may differ elsewhere.

lynnxa

welcome to spain!

in one apartment (only 2 years old) that we rented, I once tried to cook a roast...but you couldn't have the oven on at the same time as 2 rings on the hob

and you couldn't run the washing machine, the iron & the tele at the same time!

Fred James

I think in most cases it is due to the fact that the ortiginal wiring was not designed to take higher loads.

Our house was built recently and we had no problems getting a 15kw 3 phase supply. The supply can be upgraded to 25kw if we wish to.

We are not in the town but in the campo where we share a transformer with about 12 other houses.

battlezone123

I have finally found out what has happened after speaking to the boss man at the electricity company. Yes they are refunding our money because we have sufficient power to the house. But when the site visit was done and the paperwork was forwarded to the installation side they realised that we had been overcharged for the upgrade. They were told that the transformer which needed to be upgraded was about 400m away from the house but, in fact, the transformer which is two metres from our house had already been upgraded and now only needs to be wired into the house. Hence now a minimal charge. All we have to do is now wait for the new contract to be issued with a revised figure, pay this money and they will come straightaway. We will be on 13kva 3-phase. I hope this all makes some sort of sense because I am still trying to understand from the OH what has actually happened.

jdr

I hope you said thank you to the nice man, they could of kept the full price and you wouldn`t of known. ;-)