We are switched on
Getting electricity in Portugal
If you’ve recently purchased a property in Portugal and you need to get connected to the electricity network, then this article will help.
It’s been quite a journey for us to get our ‘starter’ electricity supply installed at Casa Grande.
The house never had any electrical power or cabling. This isn’t unusual for an old Portuguese casa, but it does pose challenges when trying to live in, plan and run a large renovation project.
We’ve used a petrol generator to get by, kindly loaned to us by a neighbour. However fuel costs make this an expensive operation on a day-to-day basis.
The quicker we get mains electricity installed, the better.
Getting ready for the new supply
Casa Grande is built from heritage materials (stone, granite, slate and clay). Laying cable and chasing out for sockets and lighting circuits will be a project in itself. We intend to leave the majority of stonework exposed where we can so hiding our tracks wuill be a challenge.
A common practise adopted in these rural properties is to surface mount cables using plastic conduit, switch and junction boxes. It’s not the most aesthetically pleasing solution and not a method we will be adopting as a finished style. But at the outset it will get us up and running and that’s all we need for now.
Being safe and legal
It’s worth pointing out that we haven’t carried out any electrical installation work ourselves without professional help and guidance. For obvious reasons, aspects of this process can’t and shouldn’t be approached on a DIY basis.
The renovation project plans were submitted last year and some two months later approved by our Câmara Municipal (District Council). Going forward it’s important to ensure that any work carried out conforms to applicable legislations and regulations as we progress.
Where did we start?
The first part of the electricity supply jigsaw was to contact E-Redes and make an application to get a network grid supply to the property.
While this was being processed, we cut out stonework for the external meter boxes (caixas) to be fitted. These boxes contain the meter which will eventually be connected to the overhead cable network running through the village,
The majority of properties in Portugal, outside cities and larger towns, are supplied via a network of overground electricity pylons. These are managed by E-Redes, Portugal’s national grid network operator. It’s a very ‘busy and untidy’ feature of the Portuguese landscape, but you get used to it after a while.
We made our application for grid connection via the E-Redes website. It was a quick and painless application process. If you are reading this for information on how to make your own application, it’s important to note that you will need the following details to hand when you apply:
- Personal details and contact information
- Your NIF (Fiscal Number)
- Atestado from your Junta de Freguesia
- Residency Card or Certificate
- Proof of property ownership (deeds)
- Your Artigo Matricula NIP: Land Registry Number
- Portuguese Bank Details and IBAN Number
Get it right!
Note: If there are any details missing when you make your application, it will be “sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters”, to quote a rather famous genius who appeared to have Portuguese bureaucracy fathomed along with the meaning of life!
Ready for a site visit
Once the application is made and processed, you will be billed before the first site visit is made by an E-Redes engineer. In our experience, E-Redes were very organised and efficient, so you need to be ready for them. They will check that the caixa installation you have done is in order, positioned correctly and to an appropriate standard. This is where professional experience is essential. Getting it wrong only means you will have to repeat the process.
The internal circuits
As we waited for the E-Redes visit, we pushed on with the internal installation. The first project was to install our main electrical fuse switchboard (Quadro elétrico) from which all the lighting and switch circuits will run.
Electrical cables in Portugal are fed through flexible, red and grey conduit tubing. The larger red tubing is used to house multiple smaller grey conduit tubes or main supply cables. Water installation has a similar colour coding standard, but the tubing is instead coloured blue, making the different service conduits easily identifiable.
It was time to decide on the location of a few sockets and light fixtures in the main house. This will suffice in the short term. It gets us going and means we will be able to run extension cables into the various working areas of the renovation as needed.
The home stretch
With our internal and external work now complete, an electrical engineer visited our casa to check and approve all of our work. Over the Christmas period (2022) our account at E-Redes was updated by the engineer. We were now ready to move onto the final part of the electricity supply jigsaw.
Making a contract with a supplier
EDP, Iberdrola or Endesa are the best known in Portugal. There are alternatives but from our research we opted for EDP, the most popular. They have high street shops and customer service points that you can visit (similar to mobile phone shops).
In our case, we made an application online for our supply with EDP. As mentioned earlier, we again needed our property proof of ownership, residency and personal details to hand (they need to be uploaded as PDFs) when you make your application.
Once this application was made, we received a stream of email correspondence keeping us informed of the application status. In-fact, within 24 hours, we had a date fixed that week for an engineer to visit and connect our meter to the grid. Our EDP account was ready.
It seems somewhat anti-climatic now, but in the end that’s how easy it was! The EDP engineer turned up as expected, connected our overhead cables to the meter and switched us on.
So, mid January we turned on the first ever electric light at a nossa Casa Grande and welcomed ourselves back to the 21st Century!
OK, let's hear it!
We have so much to learn, discover and enjoy here in beautiful Portugal.
Please share your comments and recommendations with us and be a part of our big house renovation journey.
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You are some couple to take on such a big project fair play please God I will see it some day
Thanks so much Mary. It keeps us young looking… I think!