Talk Quesada forum

Can anyone shed any light on how 'potencia' is recorded or measured?

We're in Pueblo Bravo, and our electricity supply states a potencia of 5.5kw.

A week or so ago, I decided to see how much stuff I could turn on before the electricity tripped.

I turned on the following:

3 x LG SmartInverter aircon units;
Washing machine;
Dishwasher;
Pool pump;
Pool heater;
All lights;
2 TVs;
Kettle.

Nothing tripped. Everything working perfectly.

An electrician friend of mine mentioned something about an amp supply...that Iberdrola were "kinder" to some areas than others...and that areas such as Quesada were very limited, whereas other areas were pretty much free to use as much electricity as they liked.

I can't say I understood any of it...so what does it all mean?!!!

Try adding the oven, microwave and an iron, that might trip it

The way Spanish supply works is you opt for a max usage supply i.e. 3.7, 5.5 etc and you pay standing charge/usage accordingly, the higher the rating the higher the price. The master trip is set at your paid for rating so if it goes over it trips. Only the Company should meddle with the trip but it is/was easy for someone to fit a higher rated trip whilst still paying the lower charges - no one seemed to check.
With the rollout of smartmeters the companies set them at your paid for rate and its harde to/ you cant meddle . . social media has been rife with complaints about tripping with the new meters, most of them who have been paying for 3.7 all this time whilst using much more!
For comfortable/carefree living 5.5 is about right, 3.7 is more for small holiday rentals where people don't overwinter or cook, use aircon, heat water, have lights on etc. all at the same time.
The way Appliances are rated doesn't meant that if you add them all together it gives you the actual total used, its usually much less which is why you can use more than you expect

Ah!Thanks Baby...good explanation!

Tontri...the oven WAS on...I forgot that on my list!!! No iron though...!!

The Iberdrola distribution app has a monthly graph of your max potentia used. By using this, I have managed to reduce my neighbour from a 10Kw supply to 5.75 Kw, as the graph showed he never exceeded 5.75Kw usage.
Thus reducing his standing charge by nearly 50%.

If you have a Smart meter then it will trip fairly accurately when you hit your contracted Potentia. If not, then it depends on the main circuit breaker in your fusebox. If it’s correctly rated for your Potentia 5.5kw @ 230v = 23.91 amps. You circuit breaker should therefore be rated at 25 amps which will mean it should trip at 5.75kw.
However, these circuit breakers are fairly insensitive and you can often exceed the rated current by 40% before they actually trip out. This means that you could probably draw around 8kw before it trips.

Pete.

It’s what we used to call in the UK the “agreed capacity” When an architect designs a building be it a factory or 2 bed apartment he/she has to tell the supplier how much power it might consume in order to gauge the supply and meter size etc. Usually it was a wild guess as pre 1996 you only had 1 supplier in your area. Since deregulation of the elect market things need to be tighter.
Interestingly, I’m male and live on my own and rarely trip the meter, but when my partner arrives from UK and she switches stuff on it trips regularly. Food for thought?

Unless I am mistaken these new smart meters measure your electric to the absolute degree no more so called free electric, or putting a larger fuse in

emwood wrote:Unless I am mistaken these new smart meters measure your electric to the absolute degree no more so called free electric, or putting a larger fuse in

Yes, that’s what I said....

PeteKnight wrote:If you have a Smart meter then it will trip fairly accurately when you hit your contracted Potentia.

Pete.

Yes, PeteKnight is correct, the smart meter regulates the power and not the fuse.

Bit of confusion over power, though.
Normal power supplied is 3.45Kw or 5.75Kw. The current rating for these is 15A and 25A.
Some bills will be marked 3.3 or 5.5. This is because until 2003, the Continent worked on 220V and UK worked on 240V.
From 2003, the voltage was equalised throughout Europe as 230V (Continent went up 10 and UK went down 10).
This doesn't matter as equipment is rated at 220 to 240V and has a = or - tolerance of at least 10%.
Those who have contracts stating 3.3Kw will stay on that for payment as will those who have 5.5Kw and pay slightly less than the contracts which state 3.45 or 5.75 even though they are exactly the same and still give 15 or 25 Amps
5.75Kw is the recommended power rating for the modern house.

Ours does trip if we have the oven and all rings on and then plug in a kettle but, apart from that, no problem as most household equipment is now A or above rating and uses less power than they used to.
If you have 10 energy saving bulbs on at the same time, it will only draw about half an amp. Your TVs and laptops/computers etc will be measured in milliamps.
Even those inverter aircon units only use less than half a Kw (mine use 380w) which is why they are so much more efficient for heating than an electric fire and only use about 1.5Kw to give up to 4Kw of heating.
Irons, kettles, toasters, microwave ovens and hoovers are the biggest users of power and current.

As already mentioned, if you change your electricity supplier you will still be reliant on Iberdrola to provide the power. Only 2 companies (Iberdrola and Endesa but Iberdrola in this area) actually provide the power to your home so, even if you find a company with cheaper electric rates, you will still be paying the same amount of standing charges.
You would also need to contact Iberdrola if you wanted to change your contracted power rating.

UK has a standard 60A domestic supply so a power rating of over 14Kw hence one of the reasons why plugs are fused and a separate fuse is fitted for cookers.