How to change your contracted power
Your bill has two main components:
- Electricity consumption: this is variable, although you can control it. This will change every month, and this part of the bill will increase the more kWh you use.
- Contracted service capacity: this is a fixed charge and depends on the kW of service capacity contracted. It will be billed on a straight-line basis month to month, although you can choose to contract more or fewer kW.
How to know whether you need more or less service capacity
There are easy “amateur” ways of working it out: if your circuit breaker never trips, it’s likely you have some margin to reduce service capacity. However, you’re already at the limit if it frequently trips.
Whatever the case, changing service capacity is not a decision you can take lightly. It’s better to forget about doing it yourself, and leave it to the professionals. We recommend you ask an approved installer to take a look at your set-up.
Endesa can help if you have any questions (after opening the contact form, select “Consultation", the category "Advice" and the subject "Doubts about the service capacity I need").
Contracting more service capacity than you need:
Unnecessarily higher bills.
Contracting less service capacity than you need:
Interruptions in supply, which will mean you have to increase the service capacity again (at an extra cost).
Cost of altering your service capacity
The distributor is responsible for supplying energy to your home. You can’t choose distributors because they are assigned by area. Your distributor may charge you for making changes to service capacity.
Your distributor will charge you:
- Around 11 euros for reducing service capacity, irrespective of the size of the decrease. After the alteration, you’ll be sent a bill for “connection charges”.
- Approximately 45 euros for each kW you increase service capacity. After the alteration, you’ll be sent a bill for “access and extension charges”.
- Depending on your distributor, you may be charged for other concepts or be required to provide a deposit.
- Remember, you can increase or decrease the power rating in multiples of 0.1 kW.
Be careful! Sometimes what appears to be cheap at first ends up costing a lot. If you reduce service capacity by too much, you might not have enough (your circuit breaker may trip when you turn on several appliances at the same time). You’ll have to increase it again and will pay quite a bit more than you had expected. Distributors are also only obliged to alter your service capacity once a year, so you may encounter problems if you need to make more changes.
You may also have to pay for a new Electrical Installation Certificate on top of all these charges ( which costs 50-200 euros).
Details of which distributor covers each area are provided here:
Although there is overlap, especially in border areas, the electricity distribution companies cover the following areas:
- e-distribución: Catalonia, Aragón, Andalusia, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands and the province of Badajoz.
- i-DE: Basque Country, Navarre, La Rioja, Castile and León except the province of Segovia and the west of province of León, Madrid except the south of the Autonomous Community, the province of Cáceres, west of the province of Toledo, north of the province of Guadalajara, the Valencian Community and Murcia.
- UFD: Galicia, the west of the province of León, the province of Segovia, the south of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, the province of Ciudad Real, the province of Cuenca, most of the province of Toledo and the south of the province of Guadalajara.
- E-REDES: Asturias.
- Viesgo Distribución: Cantabria and some parts of southern and western Asturias.
What is the certificate and how much does it cost?
It’s a document that certifies your supply is in working order. In this section, we explain why the Electrical Installation Certificate (CIE) is so important.
Your distributor requires one in the following circumstances:
- More than 20 years have elapsed since the last one was issued.
- The service capacity you have contracted is higher than that stipulated on your certificate.
- If you have made a change in the electrical voltage.
- You ask for the service capacity to be changed for a new property that has never been lived in.
- You live in the Canary Islands and want to alter service capacity.
You’ll need to call an approved technician to get a new certificate: charges vary a lot (50-200 euros), so we recommend asking for several quotes.
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What you can save by reducing service capacity
Decreasing your service capacity will have an immediate effect on your bill, and will continue to do so because it means reducing a fixed charge.
For an average home, you’ll save around 5 euros a month or 60 euros per annum for each service capacity band you drop down to.
How to change your contracted power rating in five steps
Follow these steps to change your contracted power rating with Endesa:
1. Enter your Customer Area (if you are not registered or are not logged in, you will need to register/log in).
2. Go to the section "Manage Settings" in the top menu.
3. Look for the “Rates and consumption” section and click on “Change contracted power”
4. Select the contract power you require and accept the Legal Terms.
5. Click on "Save changes".
The best rates for your power
At Endesa we adapt to your needs: use our rate recommender to find the rate that best suits you.