Last month John, a customer of ours in the province of Milan, found himself unable to WORK for two days due to DIFFERENT ELECTRICAL POWER FAILURES, and the same thing happened to some of his shed neighbors.
This event resulted in some HUGE DAMAGE.
- the LOSS of several PRODUCT in process that was found to be “nonconforming”
- the FAILURE of some machinery boards and the anti-theft system.
Totaling thousands of euros in damages! (In your case, how much would the damage amount to for two days of downtime?)
The customer then contacted us to find out if it was possible to “retaliate against the power company.”
But when are you NOT entitled to compensation?
Distributors (those who transport energy from national grids to companies) must abide by certain rules by reducing outages as much as possible and protecting end users from them.
In fact, the AEEG (Electricity and Gas Authority) has established rules that require the recording of these outages and precise quality standards. If these are not met, the distributor must pay penalties.
The Authority also sets maximum times for restoring service.
However, there are occasions when power outages are unavoidable and therefore are given appropriate notice.
In these cases, the interruption is communicated to the end user with appropriate notice of at least 24h (for exceptional events) or 2 working days (in other cases). The notice specifies exactly when the interruption will occur. NO COMPENSATION IS NORMALLY PROVIDED IN THIS CASE.
What are then the cases in which I can claim compensation?
For events in the responsibility of the distributor and without prior notice, you are entitled to AUTOMATIC REIMBURSEMENTS that are ACCREDITED IN THE BILL without your request. These compensations are calculated according to precise regulations and depend on the duration of the interruption, the time of restoration, and the municipality in which you are located.
To verify this information, you need to ask your electricity supplier for the “outage log,” in which the date and time of start and end and the cause of each outage recorded for your utility are listed.
So going back to our client in Milan, we could tell him that he does not have to make any request to retaliate against the power company since there is already an AUTOMATIC RESTRICTION system in place, but…
When YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO REIMBURSEMENT but rather the grid operator may ASK YOU TO PAY DAMAGES?
Returning to our client, we verified that the situation was very GRAVE: the client did not have the substation up to standard, or rather had not sent to the distributor (who transports the electricity from the grid to the substation) a document that is called a “statement of adequacy” (below is an example of this document) that attests to the presence of certain technical requirements.
Without this document YOU DO NOT HAVE RIGHT to any compensation!
But that’s not the end of the story: inadequate equipment can PROCEED line failures and outages, in which case it is the grid operator who MAY CLAIM DAMAGES FROM THE COMPANY.
Pay attention. If you, too, have not submitted this declaration YOU ARE PAYING the CTS (Specific Tariff Charge) EVERY MONTH: a real PENALTY that can range roughly from 100 to 1,000 €/month.
Here is an example of how you can find the penalty in your bill each month:
It does not depend on your supplier (who sends you the bills) because it is charged by the distributor (who transports energy from the national grid to your business).
To avoid finding yourself in John’s shoes:
If you don’t want to stop production for a power outage only to find out later that YOU WON’T HAVE ANY INDEMNITY you must:
- Immediately check that you have made the adequacy statement and contact us for the necessary support
- put in place PREVENTION measures to prevent damage to equipment in the event of an outage, in fact, the most sensitive machines should always be PROTECTED with devices such as uninterruptible power supplies (or UPS) that in the event of a power failure continue to operate the equipment and allow the operator to stop it without damaging it.
What about you, are you protecting your plants or are you risking ruining production because of a grid failure?
If you have experienced a power outage or want to understand how to avoid damage in the future CONTACT US NOW!
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