We have just rennovated a large house in Catalonia and we have discovered that the power supply is woefully insufficient. The power company (which I think has a monopoly) has quoted ?38,000 Euros as a cost to upgrade our supply.
The irony is that our electrician currently has an illegal supply by hotwireing the mains in some way that I don?t understand - so there is no technical problem in giving us the extra power we need.  So I can?t understand why the cost is so much.

Does any one know if I have any right of appeal over the power companies decision? Or is there ant way I can get a lower price? Is there any competition in electricity in Catalonia?

thanks

Paul

PaulG - 25 August 2009 12:02 PM

We have just rennovated a large house in Catalonia and we have discovered that the power supply is woefully insufficient. The power company (which I think has a monopoly) has quoted ?38,000 Euros as a cost to upgrade our supply.
The irony is that our electrician currently has an illegal supply by hotwireing the mains in some way that I don?t understand - so there is no technical problem in giving us the extra power we need.  So I can?t understand why the cost is so much.

Does any one know if I have any right of appeal over the power companies decision? Or is there ant way I can get a lower price? Is there any competition in electricity in Catalonia?

thanks

Paul

If the power company want that kind of money, and you already have say a 5.5KW supply ( it will be on your bill as Potencia), to upgrade you are probably paying for improved infrastructure to allow them to meet your increased demand, this may be any or all of the following
new cabling to you/provision of 3 phase cabling and metering to you/ upgrade of local transformer to allow you to access more power without affecting your neighbours etc,
It is not unusual for the Electric company to pass the charge of upgrading the local area supply(transformer or cabling) by dumping the cost on the next unsuspecting foreigner who turns up and requests an upgrade.
Good luck with this one!!!

generator would be lot cheaper .......  ID5000 Diesel / Invertor Technology (6Kva) Ex VAT .  Euros 1,280.00

jurdyr - 27 August 2009 05:40 AM

generator would be lot cheaper .......  ID5000 Diesel / Invertor Technology (6Kva) Ex VAT .  Euros 1,280.00

absolutely not!!,,6KVa doesnt sound enough for what you infer as a need, price is attractive, but a unit at that cost would have a lifespan of about 12 months depending on running hours per day and loading, you therefore would be buying a new one every year, running cost per hour is high (Compared to mains), maintenance and manual input even more considerable, and dont forget noise, diesel storage management etc etc. If you are going to consider a generatoras an alternative, you need to be looking at a 1500RPm Water cooled Super silenced unit, with power output to suit your needs plus spare capacity for peak loading, expect to pay between 5/8K for a 10KVA quality type unit with auto/remote start, running costs would be in the region of 2 plus EU’s per hour, therefore loading management and off peak running needs careful thought,  at the end of the dfay, it is a question of whether you can get the Grid upgrade cost down, and then work out a CBA vs a generator purchase and running cost or alternative energy soucre.