Hola.

Yeah, It seems I’m only posting about the cost of living….......but I’m pobrecito, so I guess it’s necessary.

Anyway, I just got my first electricity bill here (for the month of October) and it’s 42 euros. Which to some people might not seem that big, but for me it seems a little high. Do you think this is normal?

As I was living alone for the month of October I know exactly what I was using - and it wasn’t an awful lot to be honest. Just my laptop mainly and also putting the boiler on to have about 5 short showers a week (I also showered at the gym - I’m not smelly, honest). The cooker was on gas and I wasn’t using any electric lights before 8.30pm at night. So yeah, I’m thinking the bill seems a bit high, as if it’s correct the next bill for November should be upwards of 90 euros (now there are 2 of us) which is way too much.

The other thing is, how do they know? I guess the meter is probably hidden somewhere on the LOCKED roof terrace which seems a bit sly as I can’t go and check. Plus I’m not even sure they actually check the meter at all.

Not sure if this is normal and I should just take it on the chin or if there’s any way I can find out for sure.

The electricity company is IBERDROLA.

Cheers.

I have no idea but holy moly, if it’s only 42 euros, we are going to be rich, lol! Ours here in Guam is usually around 400 USD a month.

Electricity prices have zoomed up in Spain (and in the UK) 42€ does not sound too bad, are you sure it is only for 1 month and not 2 months?
They do regularly read the meters and it is shown on the factura - as either Lectura real, or Lectura estimada. There are ways of reducing costs apart from switching off ie try a different supplier, change to low cost tariff meters and use your washing machine in the middle of the night!
Diesel up 3 cents today, so another 1,50 on a typical refill.

Just echoing what Rob said… Electricity prices have increased dramatically over the last year and the increase in IVA hasn’t helped the situation but…43€ for October? Sounds like a bl**dy good deal to me… our October account was 159€ and that’s one of our slack months…

I will admit that we do tend to be a little bit heavy on our usage; we have a 1.8Kw water heater that is on 24/7 controlled only by the thermostat, but we have found that it’s actually cheaper to do it this way than to have periods where the heater is off only to have to heat up a tank-full the next time it is switched on. We use the washing machine once a week, but we do have two computer work stations normally switched on 24/7.

Our project manager / builder when we had the house reformed thought it would be a great idea to use 50W downlighters in the kitchen and bathroom… with six in the kitchen this equates to 300W every time we turn on the lights and in the bathroom its actually worse because we have had to install additional ‘normal’ lighting to ensure a shadow free environment. Our bathroom lighting totals around 450W which is a ridiculously high figure. Our Sept / October account doesn’t include any domestic heating other than the incidental heat from the downlighters in the kitchen / bathroom. When I can afford to do it the whole damn lot is coming out too be replaced by normal lighting. A single 80W strip light in the kitchen will provide more light than all the downlighters put together!

To the nitty-gritty…The actual charge for your electricity consumption depends on your contracted supply… but only affects the standing charge. I’m going to hazard a guess here and suggest that your contracted supply is 9.2Kw or less. For a 9.2Kw contract the standing charge works out to around 14.50 euros per month. Two lots of tax are applied to electricity bills over here; an electricity tax of 4.864% which is added to the standing charge and actual electricity used, and IVA at 18% (Spain’s version of VAT) which is added to the final amount due. Meter rental is not included in the standing charge although this is minimal at just 0.50 Euros per month for a normal meter.

From the above I calculate that you probably used around 25 euros worth of electricity. For comparison our 159 Euro bill was based on 114 Euro’s worth of actual consumption.

You ask ‘how do they know’ what to charge…. I believe Iberdrola are using intelligent meters in some locations and these meters do not need to be read; inside the meter is a transponder which responds to an interrogation sent out via the normal mobile phone network or which reports actual usage on a more or less continual basis. In America and in the UK these smart meters are viewed as yet another intrusion into privacy; under the T’s and C’s of the contract to supply electricity via a smart meter is the authority to circulate or release a customers usage to anyone prepared to pay for that information.

Just as a matter of interest I don’t think there is much point in changing supplier because under the law, consumers contracted to use less than 10Kw (and this includes about 90% of the population), pay a rate which is set by Government not by the supplier… Only when you get beyond the 10Kw supply does the free market apply.

There are some fly-by-night companies out there in the CDS and CB that will tell you that in exchange for ‘a small fee’ they will change your supplier and you will save x Euros or x% per month on your bills. These people are scam artists at best…

Casie… we have already ‘talked’ on this forum… if you settle on Cadiz as your new home you will be facing the Atlantic; the winter winds can bring some fairly cold weather to the area, but it wont be as cold as where we are, 2500 feet up the side of an alp near Granada; here we experience extremes of temperature varying between up to 45C / 115F in the summer, down to -10C /14F in the winter. Yet another reason why our leccy bills are so high during both the summer and winter its either aircon or heating. Our best months are normally April and May then September and October during these four months we generally don’t need either!

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Gratescape… Your bills sounds about right/modest…. Ours is usually around Eu 95 for two months. (This is how Endesa/Sevillana chose to do the billing.) Our main gripe is that they only do an estimated bill now (they used to come more regularly), and then we get landed with a Eu 200 plus bill when they do a ‘Real’ reading. To the point we have had to put the money by to make sure we have enough when it lands on the mat
Summer is obviously more efficient/less money, but yes, sadly elec is expensive.
Some compainies (I think Iberdola do), a two tier tarif. I.e if you are on 1 phase and only use X pcm then you are best on Tier 1, if you have two phases (or more), sometimes tier two is better.
But I don’t have enough know how to advise you.

Electricity is still considered to be a ‘luxury’ here (???) and you also have to pay VAT, and other nonsense charges on the bill. Your actual consumption is only part of it. 

We just know how much our bill ‘should be’ (they moved the goal posts a year ago!) and we know what to budget for.  We have been able to cut the bill a bit since having the log fire installed as we no longer need to use as often the oil filled (electrically powered) portable rads.  (We are looking at the eco elec square rads for new house in the rooms where we do not have the fire. - We did consider a back boiler, but the insall is a lot, and you can only use rads when you have fire on etc

I prefer gas for boiler, but not had one in my rented property to date.
(At least with a bottle of gas you know where you are and it is literally PAYG!)

Regards,
SJ

(How possible is it for you to have solar? Although the outlay is expensive of course.  My mate tho who is super eco friendly ran most of her stuff off 2 x very large marine batteries and the tiniest of camping type panels   You need 12v or gas type appliances tho…