Electrical Meters, Electrical Meter Boxes and Endesa.

 I´ve had plenty of PMs about these kind of things, so I figured its time to shed some light on the situation, and explain a few things, as knowledge empowers us all!

All electrical meters in Spain are to be changed by 2016. This means they will change to digital meters, with the ICP installed within, able to be read from afar, everything you do now in an Endesa office, will, in the future, be done over the phone. Here are a few examples;

If your electric is tripping and the cause is the ICP in your future meter tripping due to you using 30amp when you only have a 25amp tariff, what happens? You need to pay more to Endesa for a higher tariff, so you call, and from a little office in Seville, they will be able to change your tariff, without sending anyone to your property. They will make more money. Excellent for them. The difference in price between a 5.5kw tariff and a 9.7kw tariff can be almost 20€ a month different, an extra 240€ a year on your bill. An extra 240€ for Endesa. That isnt electricity they have supplied you with, its just the charge for dropping it to your door.

You are going away for 6 months? Call them, they will be able to "cut" your electricity from afar. When you get back, they can "put it" back on again. You will still pay the "baja" and "alta" (up to 66€ for the alta).

Unpaid bill? Instantly cut off from afar. Paid the bill? Its back on!

They will read the meters from afar, saving them the cost of sending the meter reading man around!

At the moment they are changing all the meters throughout Spain, certain areas first. Once the meters are changed, from your local transformer, they install a device, not unlike a router, connected via the internet to their central office, where they can measure electricity usage in real time. Using the same device, they will read the meters and perform all the tasks listed above.

IMPORTANT!

Do not even think twice about touching these meters with a screwdriver if you are not an authorised installer for Endesa. The moment you twist the screw on the front, it will "make a call" to central office, to tell them its being tampered with. Cool huh?

Stealing electricity? Bear in mind what I said above. Things are about to become near impossible. Even if you "have a foolproof way", which, as an electrician, I see plenty of, it wont work.

An example, depending on how big your area is, a single transformer may just supply your house and 15 others. The transformer will register in real time how much electricity it is supplying, and also, how much is being "used", if there is a difference, it will see it. It will be inspected. If it is supplying 30kw, but only 23kw is registering on the meters, 7kw is going missing somewhere, they will want to know where!!

These meters also need a larger box than the old ones, so unless you have the current electrical box, with its metal cover, you will not get the meter as it will not fit. The cost of fitting the new box will be on you. Endesa would not dream of paying for it! They even wanted to charge a "reconnection" charge of 11.80€ when they changed the meter, buy luckily there was a large backlash in time for them to be unable to do it. Think of the money! 11.80€ x 25,000,000 electricity meters. Wow!

The cost to change an electric meter box from the old model to new is charged by Endesa at 500€, however you can find cheaper, normally our company charge between 300€ to 380€, depending on which box and the conditions. IVA included in all above prices.

Also, if you ask to change the potencia tariff, or tituar on the bill, they will now automatically change your electricity meter, you will need the new box fitted before they do this.

If you live in an urbanization with a central place indoors for all the meters, you will not need to do anything.

If anyone has any questions or wants further information, comment below.

Many thanks! 

Alex. Qualified Spanish Electrician and Endesa Authorised Installer.

666.394.707    or    656.943.752

 Hello,

The meters are being fitted at the moment, throughout Spain. The Marbesa estate has already had all thiers changed, and other areas are following. All meters are supposed to be electronic by 2016.

With regards to your situation, sounds very odd, I´d be happy to take a look and give you some free advice ( I live next door in San Pedro). Surprisingly in Spain many houses and homes have a 3 phase supply, something totally unneeded for a traditional domestic installation. The only places that need 3 phase really are business premesis (meat cutting machines, 3 phase machinery) and well pumps (for rural homes), otherwise I see it as just a waste of money.

Let me know if you would like me to take a look, I am actually quite interested in seeing what has been done.

Alex

Thanks Alex, that means if Endesa if fitting a new meter now it will be a digital one, and the  Marbesa estate has it up and running so they can use the service of the alta and baja now?

Would it be possible to change the tariff that we are on  14kwh to around 8 or 9 or maybe less?

The reason being we have just had this 3 phase installed and I think to change the fusebox and anything else would be to expensive?

 All meters fitted now are digital ones.

The Marbesa estate I believe will become "fully digital" ( no longer need for Endesa to read meters, cut off or reconnect) from June next year, as they still have to fit the transformers with the correct equipment to control the meters, and a trial period.

You must have spent a fortune "upgrading" to three phase?

Since you ask... For the "cambio de modulo de contador trifasico con la normativa 2002 con puerta metalica y doble ventana", we paid 780 euros; For the "cuadro de mando y proteccion con sustitucion de automaticos unipolares y colocacion de automaticos bipolares estrechos, senalizacion de estas" (whatever all that means), 1392 euros.

 Wow, I dont really know what to say... What was the reason behind changing to 3 phase?

Edit:::

Actually you explained above that is was for "more power" to run air con, etc, however, 3 phase doesnt give you "extra power", as such, it just delivers 230v down 3 seperate lines.

You could have raised the potencia on your monophase supply to 14kw easily. A lady in this forum from Manilva has 17Kw running on single phase with no problem. I wouldnt like to think you had been "had", but this sounds fishy to me.

Can I ask who the electrical company was?

We don't know. We had building works in the house and the builder was in charge of getting the electrician in. Now we are considering to go back to a monophasic system to save on the electric bills but we don't know if the job to convert will be too expensive and therefore worth it.

We realise we've been sticthed by the Spanish builder and would like to do the best we can.

 My advice is, now that you have paid out for the three phase, you might as well keep it, how much is the Potencia charge on you 14kw on your last Endesa bill? You could drop to 10,3kw, as that is the lowest you are allowed on three phase.

Changing back to mono would be costly, and not really worth it. I wouldnt recommend it.

We haven't received a bill yet. However, we've been told that we are going to pay about 30-35 euros on the standing charge each month (we feel it's too much for a holiday home ) and that if we changed to a monophasic we could reduce that price to half. If we look at it in the long term, we think the saving could be worth paying now for the mono system.

Would you know how much it'd be the standing charge for the minimum kW on the three phase?

 Dont quote me on it, all the paperwork is in the car, but it would be around 22€ If i remember rightly. That would be for the 10.75kw. With mono you can go less, however, with a lower Potencia, you could start having the ICP trip (as you would be using more power than you have on your potencia tariff).

That price you say, does it include the standing charge for the ICP?

 If you recently had your meter changed, you probably have the digital meter with the ICP built in, there should be no charge? Or do you still have a older model meter, and an ICP indoors?

ICP rental should be about 70 cents a month. Unless you have a "recargo por falta de ICP" a surcharge for not having one, which can be up to 30€ a month.

 Fantastic, thanks for posting. Where abouts are you? When did you receive this?

Costa

In Malaga Province.  It was around 25th June.

I'm not sure if the meter was changed when they installed the triphasic system. What we know is that there was no ICP at all and was charged recargo por falta de ICP. The electrician fitted a ICP next to the fusebox so what you say it would not be digital.

In that case we would only pay a 70cents per month that would be managable so for 10.75kw be around 22.00euros standing charge.

And therefore not worth changing back to a mono, would we need a new boletin to change the potencia and is it easy to do?

Thats even better we paid for it ourselfs so there would be no charge, just the potencia standing charge I guess we would not need a new boletin to reduce the potencia.

Also it would not be worth changing the meter to digital at the moment as it would not come into force for some time yet, so we could take advantage of the alta when we are not there?

I have a meter , as do my neighbours, which is in the house. Iberdrola can change it if they want but I'm certainly not paying for it to be moved up the road somewhere. There''s not  much chance of this happening in all of Spain by 2016 .