Pocaloca

At least, it will if you are on the TUR tariff (less than 10 kW). Average reduction is 7.1% on a 4.4 kw potencia contract.

https://www.facua.org/es/noticia.php?Id=7471

Chiclanagir

Good news but why?

Pocaloca

Not sure, the TUR price is set by the government so it might be related to falling production costs? Also the energy companies are going back to bi-monthly billing.

Chiclanagir

In our area we only get our meters read every other month the other month is an estimated bill.

Lynn R

That is changing with effect from 1 April, bills are only going to be issued every other month, based on actual readings.

The bad news in the article quoted is that it says the Government are preparing a regulatory change to remove the right of millions of customers to avail themselves of the fixed tariff set by the Ministry of Energy - that doesn't sound good at all.

spainrico

Explained here

http://www.thelocal.es/page/view/sho...p#.UVh6_Fcozjk

amideislas

All of that's good news.

Apparently our politicians have decided to start regulating it downward instead of upward. Keep this up, and we may actually start to see energy prices something like other European countries pay.

But I expect the Spanish energy companies will find ways to legally charge it back. They always do.

Chiclanagir

Has the "extra" they have been charging finished yet?

Lynn R

Whatever the planned regulatory change to remove the TUR from milions of customers may be, the article says that they will have to go onto a free market tariff which are nearly always more expensive - that means higher bills for many people who are probably struggling to pay them already. There are no details in the article of the proposal, but I suspect the TUR may be limited to pensioners and the unemployed in future.

Lynn R

Yes, it has.

Pocaloca

I think it more likely they will restrict it to contracts with lower potencias e.g. under 6 kw. At the moment it is 10 kw. Means testing is desperately inefficient and expensive to administer, and open to fraud - everyone will put their electricity contracts in the name of their abuela! But encouraging lower energy use looks "green" therefore good.

amideislas

You're right, but the reason is that in reality, the electricity biz is still a kind of monopoly.

Despite there being some "competition" in the electricity biz (which if were true, would spark downward price pressure to compete for a 10 bil market), the problem is that people have little choice - they need electricity, well, other than spending a fortune on their own source of electricity, which most can't afford.

So, it's not as though there is a lot of motivation to the utilitiy companies to make things more efficient, spend less money, and ultimately, keep rates competitive. They'll all have a lot of business, not matter what they do or what they charge, and at the moment, the government effectively negates any competition, by regulating what each kilowatt is charged by any utility. So, there really isn't a competitive free market.

If Spain really wanted to lower the prices to the consumer, it would bring back the massive tax breaks for anyone investing in solar or any other alternative means to get homes off the grid, and force the utilities to buy back their excess. I'd bet we'd suddenly see the "free market" rates charged by the electric companies come way, way, way down.

Fred James

There is but it doesn't apply to the 95% of domestic consumers that are on the TUR tariff.

If you use the comparative charge website you will see that in the free market there can be a big difference between companies. In the TUR. Market there is little room for manoeuvre apart from standing charges and the split between the rates on dual tariffs.

The reason that the free market prices are higher than the TUR tariff is that for years the government has kept the TUR prices below cost.

That is now changing as the subsidy is being decreased and it is entirely possible that the current 10kw point below which you qualify for TUR will be reduced to a lower figure of around 4.4kw which is more typical of the average user.

amideislas

Thanks, Fred,

Well, that seems to be rather bad news, since we recently spent a fortune reducing our tariff from the "obligatory" 10.8Kw (they lied about it being obligatory) to 5.4Kw (only discovered after hiring an independent electrician who pointed out the truth to us) to get away from the massive overcharging we were subjected to without any opportunity for refund (Endesa even admits they owe us about €2000 in overcharges, but claims they have no obligation to refund it because we cancelled direct debit to avoid being charged €500 per month for €100 per month in consumption - I simply can't fathom that logic).

I reckon we'll need to reduce the contract again, likely involving another massive investment in nothing more than a stamp on a paper to enable that.

Like I said, they get it from you - one way or another.

Pocaloca

It shouldn't cost much to change from 5.4 to 4.6 kw. I went the other way four years ago (3.3 to 4.6) and it cost about €60 I think.