Service quality comprises a series of technical and commercial characteristics inherent to the electricity supply and required by the subjects, consumers and competent authorities.

Quality of service consists of the following:

 

  • Continuity of supply, relating to the number and duration of supply interruptions.
  • Quality of the product, relating to the characteristics of the voltage waveform.
  • Quality of customer service and customer relations, relating to the various activities involved in information, advice, contracts, communication and complaints.

National Regulations

  • Article 48 of Law 54/1997, on the power sector, regulates the quality of electricity supply, establishes that the Central Government of Spain will determine objective service quality indices and that electricity companies will be required to provide the government authorities with information on their quality indices.
  • Royal Decree 1955/2000, of 1 December, regulating the activities of transportation, distribution, marketing, supply and procedures for authorising electricity facilities. Dedicates Chapter II, of Heading VI, to establishing the content and scope of electricity supply quality.
  • Order ECO/797/2002, of 22 March, approving the procedure for measuring and controlling electricity supply continuity. Establishes a procedure for measuring and controlling continuity of supply that is applicable as standard to all companies and can be audited.
  • ROYAL DECREE 1634/2006, of 29 December, establishing the electricity tariff as from 1 January 2007. (Official State Gazette (BOE) 30-12-2006)
  • Law 24/2013, of 26 December, on the Power Sector. Chapter II of Heading VIII regulates supply quality, understood to be a series of characteristics, service techniques and relations with consumers and producers that can be required of companies engaged electricity supply activities. Furthermore, it provides a legal regime for suspending the supply of electricity.

Specific regulations

Under Article 13 of Decree 19/2008, of March, all information relating to incidents in Madrid that exceed the following criteria must be communicated (Article 13.1 of Decree 19/2008):

  • That continue to affect over 2,000 supplies 15 minutes after starting.
  • That last more than six hours, regardless of the number of supplies affected.
  • That affect over 10,000 supplies and last more than three minutes.

Any unforeseen incidents that meet any of the requirements shall be considered as “Candidates for Publication” on CAM but shall not be considered as “Published” (visible on the CAM portal) until six hours after their start date/time.

SU (single supply) incidents, scheduled activities and service orders are not included.