Legislation for cheaper electricity bills for Portugal’s poorest families seems at last to be biting as energy suppliers to the Algarve’s households now have to provide 24,138 customers with the ‘social tariff.’
Economically vulnerable consumers are automatically allowed to benefit from the low-cost electricity rates and also cheaper gas supplies as long as their income is €5,808 or less or the householders are on defined social benefits.
The discounts are worth having and have been fiercely resisted by the fuel companies, especially EDP and Galp Energía, as electricity bills on the cheap tariff drop by over a third and gas bills by 31%.
Of the 24,138 beneficiaries in the Algarve, Loulé has the most with 3,390 qualifying households: Alcoutim has just 194 beneficiaries, the lowest number in the region.
The social tariff is now automatic with bills from 1 July expected to drop significantly.
This social benefit scheme was passed into law in 2010 to help economically vulnerable customers but was largely ignored by EDP which has been fined €7.5 million by the energy regulator for failing to let its customers know how to apply - a fine which EDP continues to contest in a move that many pundits consider as one of the year’s corporate PR disasters.
The Socialist government was wise to the mendacious and tardy behaviour of the energy suppliers and changed the law so that the inclusion of poor householders was automatic, whereas before the customer had to apply to the supplier for the discount.
Nationally, the projected total of beneficiaries covered by the social tariff is 630,698. At the end of 2015 when the government took office, the number on the cheap rates was just 108,300.
The change in assessment methodology, making it automatic, now ensures the fuel companies have no option but to apply the cheap tariff. Whether they will stop moaning, remains to be seen.
