In Spain, Endesa distributes electricity in 20 provinces across nine autonomous regions (Catalonia, Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Aragon, Extremadura, Castile-Leon, Navarre and Valencia), covering an area of 200,000 km2 with a total population of around 22 million.The number of distribution customers increased during 2009 by 0.4% to 11.7 million.
Endesa maintained its leadership position in the Spanish electricity market as a whole throughout the year. The company has a 29.4% market share in ordinary regime electricity generation, 43.2% in distribution, 41.7% in the deregulated market, and 42.0% in sales to end customers.
Endesa’s network supplied 115,265 GWh of power in 2009, measured at busbar cost, a reduction of 3.5% on 2008. The reduction for the entire Spanish electricity system was 4.4%, according to data from UNESA.
A key event in 2009 was the full deregulation of the retail market and the separation of grid and energy supply activities from 1 July, as a result of the transposition into Spanish law of the 2003 European Directive.
Pursuant to Royal Decree 485/2009 and Ministerial Order ITC 1659/2009, Endesa Distribución transferred its supply contracts to supply companies, maintaining the grid access contracts held with customers. This implied the transfer of more than 11 million contracts without affecting supplies to the customers concerned.
In 2009, the lines making up Endesa’s distribution grids were extended by 2.7%, to 313,392 km. Underground lines accounted for 26% of this total.During the year, 21 new high and medium voltage substations came on stream, putting the total number of substations at 1,273 at year-end.Significant developments in the year include the coming on stream of the Don Rodrigo-Morón high voltage line in Seville, the Alcorisa-Andorra line in Teruel, and the Buixalleu-Salt, Cas Tresorer-Son Orlandis and Buenos Aires-Guajara lines in Girona, Mallorca and Tenerife, respectively (this last is a 66 kV underground line extending more than 7 km). Six new substations were constructed in Barcelona province, four in the Balearic Islands, four in Tenerife and three in Seville.In 2009, the company continued to develop its Medium Voltage Grid Automation Plan with a total of 21,376 remote-controlled elements. Furthermore, all substation switches are remote controlled, with 6,178 breakers in place.Other initiatives focused on reducing the environmental impact of the grids and developing various rural electrification plans, backed by respective local governments.
The basic purpose of Endesa’s distribution grid is to ensure continuity of electricity supply to its 11.7 million customers in Spain and Portugal. The indicator which measures the continuity of supply is Average Interruption Time, and the procedure for calculating this is regulated by Royal Decree 1955/2000. The results are audited annually by an independent company. In 2009, the Average Interruption Time in markets supplied by Endesa was 70 minutes. This is three minutes more than in 2008. This is an excellent result given the damage caused to the company’s grids by the adverse weather conditions experienced across all regions, especially at the start and the end of the year. This Average Interruption Time implies an availability of the service equal to 99.98% of total hours for the year.All the cities and urban areas supplied by Endesa enjoy levels of service quality on a par with the best in Europe. The capital cities of the provinces in which Endesa has distribution operations experienced Average Interruption Times of around 30 minutes.The number of equivalent interruptions of installed capacity in Spain in 2009 was 1.7, up 0.1 compared with 2008 (1.6%).The distribution grid covers all of Spain. If there are any specific, individual cases where the grid is not available, it is due to factors outside the control of the company, such as it not having been requested, or the local authority refusing permission to contract distribution services.Furthermore, in 2009 Endesa installed in Spain the first system to prevent interruptions to the power supply, known as the DVR (Dynamic Voltage Restorer)
Endesa has continued implementing its policy of improving and maintaining access to electricity and customer services in both Spain and Latin America.
Creation of the bono social. When the deregulation process was completed on 1 July, a discount rate (bono social) was created for customers on the tariff of last resort (TLR) to benefit economically disadvantaged groups. In practice, the discount rate means freezing electricity prices at the rate in force at 30 June 2009. The discount received by these customers against current prices will therefore become more significant over time as increases are applied to the TLR.The beneficiaries are customers with supplies below 3kW, pensioners, families whose members of working age are all unemployed and large families. At the end of 2009 1,140,646 customers received the discount, of which 1,002,880 received it automatically.