WaypointSur
Edited by Andrew Lawrence
We all need power to live.
Before you say yes to a cheaper rate
The November electricity bill often arrives in the same week as an offer of a cheaper rate, and a lower number is hard to refuse when the bill in your hand is a high one.
Before you say yes, there are three steps worth taking, in this order. Run the bill through the WaypointSur checker, which points to whether your contract is the likely problem. If it is, scan the QR code on the bill, which opens the Spanish energy regulator's comparison of offers. Then read the offer you like before you sign it.
The checker and the comparison are both free. Reading the offer takes a few minutes, and it shows you whether the price changes after the opening discount.
Step one: check what is wrong with the bill
A high bill can come from a poor contract, and it can just as easily come from something a new contract does not change. Your bill shows a contracted power figure, in kW, and it may be higher than your home needs. You may be paying for an add-on service. You may simply have used a lot of electricity.
A new supplier, the comercializadora — the company that sells you the electricity and sends the bill, can help with a poor contract. Switching does not fix contracted power that is too high, and it does not remove an add-on, so it helps to know which of these you are looking at before you compare anything.
That is the job of our free electricity bill checker. Upload your latest bill, which it reads without keeping a copy, or type in the figures yourself, and it points to the most likely cause.
If your bill is an unusual one, for instance because you have solar panels and sell power back to the grid, the checker flags it for a closer look instead of guessing.
If it points to contracted power, an add-on or your use, you can stop here for now, because a new deal is unlikely to be the answer.
Before you switch: two things to check
If you receive the bono social — the social discount on electricity bills, you lose it when you move to a commercial deal. Check what the discount is worth to you before you move.
It also helps to know whether you are on the regulated price, which appears on the bill as PVPC. This is a tariff set by the government that some suppliers must offer. The comparison shows it separately from the commercial offers, and it costs the same whichever of those suppliers you use.
Step two: scan the code on the bill
If the checker points to the contract, find the QR code printed on your bill and scan it with your phone. Bills that come by email carry a link instead. Either one opens a comparison run by the CNMC, which is Spain's energy regulator, with your bill already in it.
The CNMC runs this comparison of about 800 offers because EU rules require one. Offices rarely answer a difficult form by taking the form away, and this one did. It saw that people struggled to type in their own electricity use, so since 2021 suppliers have had to print a code that does the typing for you.
When we tried it on 10 November, it gave an estimate of what that bill would have cost on each offer it lists, with tax and meter rental included, so you can compare each estimate with the total you paid. The page is in Spanish, so it helps to have your phone's translate function ready.
Each estimate prices the one bill you scanned. If that bill comes from a second home, or from an unusual month when the house was full or empty, it is a poor guide to what an offer would cost you over the rest of the year. A bill from an ordinary month in the home you live in is a better one to scan.
Step three: read the offer before you sign
Open the offer itself, because that is where the cheapest ones explain themselves. Many are for new customers only. Many others carry a discount during the first year, so the price to look for is the one you pay after the discount ends.
Leaving a contract later is free, unless you chose a fixed price and you leave during its first year. In that case the supplier can charge you only if it shows it lost money, and then no more than 5% of what the rest of the contract's electricity would have cost.
Once you sign, a switch normally takes 10 working days.
Spanish-lite
Two words you will meet on the bill and in the offer:
Potencia contratada — contracted power. The kW figure on your bill for how much electricity your home can draw at once. The checker looks at whether yours is set higher than you need.
Permanencia — minimum contract term. If an offer mentions it, look for what it charges you for leaving early.
The bottom line
Check the bill with our checker, compare it using the code the regulator made suppliers print, and read the offer before you sign. The checker and the comparison are free, and the offer is where a new-customer condition or a first-year discount shows up. If a cheaper rate is offered to you this month, start with the bill you already have.
Nearly there — A. and the WaypointSur team, who have now scanned more electricity bills than is strictly healthy.
