The Energy Services Regulatory Authority will continue "to defend the rights of consumers" in court proceedings brought by EDP which is contesting an instruction to pay €7 million in compensation to customers on bi and tri-hourly tariffs.
EDP has resorted to court in an attempt to avoid paying the compensation to customers who were disadvantaged by the widespread inaccuracy of the meters which had their clocks set incorrectly.
The ESRA says it will continue to "protect the interests of consumers" in this dispute after it was notified in November of an action brought by EDP Distribution to request the cancellation of an edict by the regulator that it pay financial compensation to consumers that has been overcharged - around 800,000 of them.
The ESRA was notified in November that EDP was going to court over the matter in what may be a test of strength between the country's largest energy supplier and its regulator.
EDP at first said there was one faulty batch of meters, which was untrue. It then said only a few thousand customers were affected, which was untrue.
Consumer watchdog DECO then did a survey and estimated hundreds of thousands of EDP meters were faulty and customers under many circumstances will have been overcharged. EDP then said that it would pay compensation, which it now is going to court to avoid doing.
The electricity behemoth received an order from ESRA to compansate customers, something it already had agreed to do. Now EDP is refusing to pay up and is taking its own regulator to court to protect its new Chinese shareholders from a relatively small compensation payment.
