Three out of ten users are unaware of the type of electricity tariff they have.

Three out of ten users say they do not know the type of electricity tariff they have contracted, according to data from the fourth quarter of 2018 from the panel of households of the National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC).

15/06/2019

Periodicodelaenergia.com

27.2% stated that they had an hourly rate, while 15.4% contracted a rate with hourly discrimination in two or three tranches.

Among households with the latter type of tariff, nine out of ten take into account the difference in prices to carry out their consumption habits, for example, to turn on the air conditioning or put in the washing machine.

Only 40% of those who have an hourly rate with a digital meter adapt their consumption to reduce the bill.

Almost half of the households with natural gas contract this service with their electricity supplier.

The main reason why they do it is to have only one energy supplier, but also important are the discounts or improvements in prices that these contracts of the two services give.

By companies, Gas Natural Fenosa has the highest number of households with contracts for both services (37.4%), followed by Endesa (22.7%) and Iberdrola (20.5%).

With regard to changes of electricity supplier, 17% of Spanish households changed their electricity supply in the last two years, while 13% changed their electricity supply for natural gas service.

Twenty-six percent of households sought a new supply through a comparator in the case of electricity supply, while in the case of natural gas 43% of supply changes occurred after contact by a supplier, either by telephone or at home.

A high percentage of households say they understand the conditions of the new offer, but more than 15% say they do not understand them.

More and more users, approximately 75%, see the contracted conditions fulfilled, although 10% of those who changed contracts detected services with additional costs in their bill.

The Household Panel of the CNMC is a half-yearly survey of households and persons and in this last wave, carried out in the fourth quarter of 2018, it included 4,811 households and 8,974 individuals.