fuel costs
 

Can someone tell me the current Kwh cost from their electricity bill please and the standing charges. I think we're due to have the higher end fitted possibly 12 KW (if that makes sense).
We'll be with Sevilla Endesa if that makes a difference

Re: fuel costs
 

If you have a potencia of more than 10kw you will need a three phase supply and also you will not be able to have the government controlled TUR tariff. That means you will be able to choose which supplier you use and , unlike the TUR tariff, they can vary significantly between suppliers.

At the moment Endesa charge about €3.8 per month per kw of potencia and the unit charge is about €0.24. Those prices include IVA and the special taxes.

If you need around 10kw you may be better to go for single phase and just under 10kw. The reason for that is that if you had a 12kw supply on three phase you would have to have a triple ICP so that in effect each circuit would be limited to only 4kw. With single phase you would have one circuit with nearly 10kw available.

You will find that you will trip a 12kw ICP more often than you would trip a 10kw ICP. You would also benefit from the cheaper TUR tariff.

Re: fuel costs
 

Agree Angie, go for a lower tariff if possible, it's much cheaper. Unless you have an air conditioned centrally heated mansion with a pool filter running 24h you won't ever need more than 10kw! Mine is 4.6 and we usually have a couple of electric radiators on during the winter, the standing charge is around €17 every two months I think.

Re: fuel costs
 

Angie, have you and hubby sat down and spreadsheeted all your energy load on say an hourly basis ? ?
how often do you have a 3kw fire on at full 3kw ??

i am sure you will be pleasantly surprised that it is less than you think and that a little bit of judicious adjusting will probably iron out the peaks.

10kw, as Fred says is a stonking load really, and if you distribute it to the areas of need like the old UK system of circuits they will operate way below their max.

Re: fuel costs
 

We have 9.2kw. This morning we tripped for about the second time in 5 years. Before the trip we had the following running - 2 aircon units (obviously on heat), 6 radiators (1 in each bedroom, and 1 in each bathroom), pool pump, TV, toaster, 2 fridges, 2 freezers and the water heater (following a shower). My children were staying, and I forgot I had put the radiators on the timer switches, so when I turned on the kettle it tripped. I turned off one of the aircon units and carried on, with no problems.

Re: fuel costs
 

Funny but whenever ours trip it's the kettle!

Re: fuel costs
 

Kettles and irons can add up to 3kw each to the load. I was going to increase my potencia but as I only have a holiday home I decided it was not worth the bother. You soon learn to work around it. I think if I was an expat I would probably make the effort.

Re: fuel costs
 

The other units that simply gobble power are the oven and hob!

We only have 5.xxkw and that's ample.

Re: fuel costs
 

I'm curious if Spain is the only country in the EU where it's a perfectly normal topic to discuss which appliance is most likely to cut your power because it violates your contracted limit for 3 seconds.

Or that the 20+ cent per kilowatt power you are entitled to on the special government-subsidised tariff is a benefit compared to the 12+ cent tariffs you pay in other countries without such subsidies.

Yet another testament to the benefits of complex regulations combined with subsidies for the "benefit of the population".

Hmmph!

Re: fuel costs
 

Well I am not sure if we discuss it as such but we certainly have the same problem here in France.
We too find it is usually the kettle that trips out.

Re: fuel costs
 

If you think an oven is greedy you should try underfloor heating!

Re: fuel costs
 

I'm sure that's true as we only have 3.45kw (use a gas cooker) and have never had a trip since our ICP was fitted.

Re: fuel costs
 

Perhaps, but I'm not aware of any other country where the law mandates that your power must be cut for temporarily exceeding your contracted power limit by even a few watts, for a few seconds.

In most countries, you pay for the power you use, and any contracted limits are "averaged" rather than hard-limited on a few seconds of excess. I'd bet most people requiring a 5Kw contract barely use 2Kw on average. More likely less than 1Kw.

It's a bit like paying a €30 per month phone contract that allows you 100 minutes per month at a "discount" rate that's higher than most of the rest of the world, but is only valid if you never speak for more than 2 minutes at a time, and if you do, your phone is completely cut off, requiring you to manually reset it before you can use the phone again.

Of course, if you don't want to lose your power for using your kettle for a few minutes, just "upgrade" to a substantially more expensive tariff, and pay for lots more power you don't use.

The result is that we always are paying a tariff which exceeds your average consumption, in addition to the higher tariffs we pay in Spain as a result of our governmentally-mandated regulation and subsidies - in the public interest of course.

All these investments in building more monopolies in South America have caused Endesa's profits to slip below €5Bil. I reckon it's time to extort a few politicians to impose new regulations which enable them to legally extort more money from the public - naturally, in the public interest.

Re: fuel costs
 

Amideislas I think we do have the same power system, although possibly not the same legal system. We are currently on the lowest power rating, and I know we should upgrade, but the house is only half renovated. I am told that upgrading once is comparatively easy, but upgrading twice - EdF may simply refuse. We also have a separate reduced night time tariff that you can use to run electric water heaters and the like. If you ask nicely, EdF will put you on that tariff. However, if the moon is circling widdershins or some other nonsense, they will refuse!
Much of the problem I believe (but may be wrong) is probably down to language problems. There are plenty of English residents here who do not speak French. I am waiting till all is complete before I put that to the test though.

Re: fuel costs
 

We're in the middle of a spreadsheet for costs. But I didn't think of doing an hourly load one.
I use an oven for my work and could have a washing machine a dishwasher a kettle and some heating and even water heating on at the same time. But as you say it's worth planning the times of day you use each piece of equipment.