Endesa Contracted Power

Hi all,

Just received my first electric bill from Endesa, which is probably the most complicated bill I have ever seen

I've worked out most of it but am completely baffled by the implication of contracted power. If you contract more power then you need it increases your bill but what are the actual implications of requesting too little ? It seems to imply there would be an interuption of supply (power cut ?) but are there financial penalties ? Is there a relationship between the contracted cost and consumed cost ?

Confused  

Danny

Your junction box has a circuit breaker on it with a lead seal preventing you from opening it and substituting it. If you have a 3kW "potencia", this breaker will be a 15Amp one. If you have 10kW, it will be 40Amps and so on.

THIS SETS THE MAXIMUM POWER THAT YOU CAN USE AT ANY ONE TIME.
If you exceed this, say by having a 2kW electric kettle running and a 1kW water heater and a tumble drier and you're doing the ironing - the breaker will trip and cut all your power until you turn some stuff off and reset it.

Providing power delivery infrastructure and maintaining it is expensive. Building power stations and wind farms is very expensive. This is a way of artificially limiting the need for increased power consumption.

Thanks Pete,

I have a low contracted power of 3.4 on my account so guess I will keep it that way and see how it goes. If I keep tripping the power then I guess I will just increase the contracted power. From what I now understand the standing order increases with the contracted power level, but the cost of electricity is standard.

Another thing learnt

Danny