Does your electricity never cut out when you run the hob and oven together? Then you're almost certainly paying for more power than you use. Lowering it by 1 kW takes five minutes on your distributor's website and saves €30–80 a year — permanently, with zero sacrifice.
It's one of the rare settings you change once and it keeps saving on its own, every single month. Let's do it.
The five-second test
Your contracted power ("potencia contratada") is your home's electrical ceiling: how many kW you can draw at once before the ICP trips — that's the breaker that cuts your supply. You pay for this power whether you use any electricity or not. It's a fixed standing charge, like rent for capacity.
Here's the key question:
If your ICP has never tripped, you're probably paying for too much power.
That sudden "everything goes dark" moment when you switch on several appliances at once? That's the ICP. If you can't remember the last time it happened, you're carrying more kW than you need — and paying for them daily.
How much you save
A huge number of Spanish homes still have 5.5 kW contracted purely out of habit — from the days of halogen bulbs and appliances that drew twice as much. In a modern home with LEDs and efficient appliances, 4.4 kW is enough.
Each kW you drop is roughly €30/year off your bill. Going from 5.5 to 4.4 kW:
| Power | Approx. annual saving | |
|---|---|---|
| Before | 5.5 kW | — |
| After | 4.4 kW | ~€30/year |
Depending on your case and tariff, optimizing your power saves anywhere from €30 to €80 a year. And it's not a temporary deal — it's permanent.
The 2.0TD trick: two powers
The 2.0TD tariff lets you contract two different power levels: one for peak hours (08:00–24:00) and one for off-peak (00:00–08:00). At night you barely use anything, so you can set your off-peak power lower than your peak power. One caveat: if you schedule the washing machine or water heater overnight, make sure off-peak covers it. For most people, lowering it goes completely unnoticed.
How to size it
Don't guess — add up the loads you actually run at the same time. The most demanding moment in a normal home is full-on cooking (oven ~2.2 kW + hob ~2 kW + extractor), or a water heater (~2 kW) plus the washing machine. If your peak fits inside 4.4 kW — and it usually does, as long as you don't switch it all on in the same second — you're comfortable.
Important warning: if you have — or are getting — an electric car, a typical home charger draws 7.4 kW. That alone eats your entire contracted power. Before lowering anything, read our guide on the best time to charge an electric car in Spain — it explains how to charge at lower amps or overnight so you don't have to raise your power at all.
The step-by-step (five minutes)
This is the part most people get wrong, so read it slowly:
- Go to your DISTRIBUTOR's website, not your supplier's. The distributor ("distribuidora") is the company that physically delivers electricity to your home — it depends on your area and you don't get to choose it. The big ones: e-Distribución (Endesa), i-DE (Iberdrola), UFD (Naturgy). Your CUPS (on your bill, starts with ES) tells you which one is yours.
- Log in with your CUPS and details. Some require a digital certificate or prior registration.
- Request the power change. You pick your new peak and off-peak values.
- Confirm. Done.
The change is free once a year. It takes up to a few weeks to apply (sometimes they adjust the ICP), but there's no power cut and no technician visit to your home except in rare cases.
If the website defeats you, you can also request it from your supplier ("comercializadora") by phone and they'll process it with the distributor — easier, and just as free.
Once a year, then forget it
This isn't like hunting the cheapest hour every day. You do it one afternoon and that's it: confirm your ICP never trips, drop from 5.5 to 4.4 kW (or whatever step fits), set your off-peak power lower while you're at it, save the confirmation and forget about it. The saving lands on its own every month.
With your power right, the next move is shifting usage to the cheap hours. The live PVPC price for every hour is on the homepage, with the 24-hour heatmap for today and tomorrow.