Missing payment. Before turning off the light, customers will have reduced power

The Regulatory Authority for Energy Services (ERSE) approved this Tuesday (17) the Regulation of Common Commercial Relations (CRR) for electricity and gas, the first of its kind, since before there was a regulation for each of the sectors.

One of the changes to the new regulation is related to the introduction of the “possibility of reducing the contracted power, before the supply interruption materializes, allowing, for example, avoiding situations of cuts due to non-payment due to lack of customer”.“.

Thus, a customer who has stopped paying the electricity bill is subject to a reduction in the contracted power, in order to notice this reduction (for example, not being able to have several devices connected at the same time), thus giving him the opportunity to regularize payment and avoid blackout.

In the event of an interruption, the RRC will order the suspension of the billing of charges for access to networks, which “in addition to allowing a more balanced distribution of risks between network operators and providers, relieves interrupted consumers from the I pay fixed charges, ”explains ERSE.

The new regulation also establishes a maximum of 12 months, without the possibility of automatic renewal, of loyalty in consumer contracts, maintaining the rule that “loyalty depends on special information duties, an associated consideration and that the compensation, if applicable, must be proportional to the actual losses for the supplier”.

The CRR is applied throughout the national territory, but has specific rules for the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira, as they are island systems, the regulator points out.