6 things you need to know about Enel connections

That's really useful. Thank you ourtoscana.

We have just had a quote from ENEL for connecting the electricity to our farm and it is an eye-watering €780 to connect us, and put the meter in the cupboard we have to supply and fit, all situated just 30cm from the actual electricity pole.

He will struggle to make the job last more than 2 hours. So that is some hourly rate!!

I know it's really outrageous  ... I am currently removing a pole and burying a line on a job. The quote is for 4200euro and will take 2 guys at most a morning to complete + perhaps 400euro of material. That's a total cost of 600euro.

A real monopoly!!

I loved your comment about poles and cables cutting across otherwise magnificent views! It seems to happen all the time... Saboteurs! 

When we bought Casa Ghiro it came with a 3kW electric supply.  

Those of you who have read 'Summer's Lease' by John Mortimer will know what's coming next!

We have (among other electrical things) an oven, a washing machine and a dishwasher.  All were bought here.  The problem is that, if we ever dare to use more than one of the above at the same time, the supply immediately trips out  

And to make matters worse if a visiting British friend (usually, but not always, female) brings a hairdryer with them there's not a snowball's chance in hell of washing or cooking anything!!

Well we've finally persuaded ENEL to give us 6 kilothings rather than a mere 3 kilothings. 

Result!     OK!  OK!  It'll cost us more.   

But at least we can now use an electric toothbrush and an iPad at the same time without plunging our house, and the surrounding Italian countryside, into stygian darkness.

Sorry I do not understand? Must be the giant plasma screen causing it.... 3kw is more than enough for us barbarians... Oh, by the way, what happened to the well "educated lady" on here...      

Ghiro, in no way whatsoever do I have much knowledge on electrics here, but I heard somewhere (probably on this Forum) that UK electrical products tend to use more than Italian electrical products.

We also have the 6 kilithingies and we have pretty much everything working together (including the pool pump at times). When the electric hairdryer goes on however, the lights do dim noticeably !

V

ghiro wrote:Well we've finally persuaded ENEL to give us 6 kilothings rather than a mere 3 kilothings.  Result!     OK!  OK!  It'll cost us more.   But at least we can now use an electric toothbrush and an iPad at the same time without plunging our house, and the surrounding Italian countryside, into stygian darkness.

several years back we had a very high KW line put to our house it was,at that time,the first optic fibre line in AP.not on old wooden posts but new heavy duty concete ones.we had it brought to within about 30 metres from the house and assumed the costs of burying it to the meter which enel put in.Although it was a big expense it turned out to be less than an equivalent uk cost.we had a scottish sheep farmer staying at our place and he had had only 1 km of line put in for the same KW...his cost was more than double.The trouble is you cannot compare the costs of connection of a house in a suberb in the UK with some fairly remote context here.Just a word of advice be present if you have to do these works i know somone who has a holiday house and left it up to enel to do everything when he came back he found he couldn't open the shutters on a window as they had put up a pole centimetres in front of his shutters and window!!

sebastiano............

left it up to enel to do everything when he came back he found he couldn't open the shutters on a window as they had put up a pole centimetres in front of his shutters and window!!

I LOVE IT !!!

ps: I remember going up to Smerillo about 18 months back and nearly came off the cliff edge as the road was all but gone !  Hopefully they have recovered something ?

This might help give an idea as to what uses what ThisMoney LINK Ok it is yearly consumption, but tells you what is the big usage....        But it's very tricky as THIS LINK shows.... If you look at the best and worst ranges it can be 4 times more expensive to run just between types of washer.....

stevegwmonkseaton wrote:Sorry I do not understand? Must be the giant plasma screen causing it.... 3kw is more than enough for us barbarians... Oh, by the way, what happened to the well "educated lady" on here...      

Great links above Steve.  Thank you.  

I note that a LCD flat screen TV costs £29/year to run whereas a Plasma is a stonking great £95.     Happily not a plasma TV to be found in Casa Ghiro however.

BTW Steve which well "educated lady" did you have in mind?    

ghiro wrote:

stevegwmonkseaton wrote:Sorry I do not understand? Must be the giant plasma screen causing it.... 3kw is more than enough for us barbarians... Oh, by the way, what happened to the well "educated lady" on here...      

Great links above Steve.  Thank you.   I note that a LCD flat screen TV costs £29/year to run whereas a Plasma is a stonking great £95.     Happily not a plasma TV to be found in Casa Ghiro however.

BTW Steve which well "educated lady" did you have in mind?    

The culture secretary of course...       

Made me laugh when our neighbour said he was having a 15Kw supply and that as we had it first and the cable was over his land he would not have to pay so much to tap off it by Enel. Shock/Horrer, it cost him the same connection charge

There was a post on ENEL (elsewhere today) about payments to ENEL and I wondered if we had any information here on the subject. Thought this original post had superb information, so a good one to resurrect. We don't appear to have anything here about it. We simply pay ours bi-monthly via our bank a/c (Italian), get the paper bill and pay manually via on-line. Of course if in the UK for months on end, this does not work. So when we were we a few years back we decided to see if we could get electronic bills, you can, but you have(had) to pay by DD. But we did find we could look at our bills on-line and download a copy and of course then pay it from the UK from our on-line Italian account. Can anyone add to this information?

stevegwmonkseaton wrote:There was a post on ENEL (elsewhere today) about payments to ENEL and I wondered if we had any information here on the subject. Thought this original post had superb information, so a good one to resurrect. We don't appear to have anything here about it. We simply pay ours bi-monthly via our bank a/c (Italian), get the paper bill and pay manually via on-line. Of course if in the UK for months on end, this does not work. So when we were we a few years back we decided to see if we could get electronic bills, you can, but you have(had) to pay by DD. But we did find we could look at our bills on-line and download a copy and of course then pay it from the UK from our on-line Italian account. Can anyone add to this information?

unlike most we have opted for direct debit...surprise..it actually works and very well...no more "strange bills"..."out of time/late bills"...automatic riembursement in casr of black outs etc..we receive the invoice electronically via mail (and thru the post)and it's paid by the bank directly on the last possible date as per the invoice.It's enough to take your last bill to the bank,get them to fill in the module at the back/end of the bill and they'll take it from there..definitely worth it.

Good OP, but Ill add a caveat.  Contrary to popular opinion, you do not have an inalienable right to an electricity supply.  ENEL can refuse to connect you for various reasons.  Neighbours are not obliged to give you the right to cross their land.

Thanks Sebastiano, we too would like to pay by DD, but just don't trust the "Italian system" as yet... It's a bit like going back 30-40 years ago in the UK, these things are very "new-fangled" here. The only DD we have here is our water and that's down to the fact it's a very small company, they do have a web site, but little on it and no way of getting your bills electronically. That too works fine, so well we've not paid any water bill for over a year. Not too worried yet as they did say when we started with them that if we went to DD they would pay us back our €100 deposit. In short out water bills are a lot less than the electric, but we might just set up a DD with ENEL. My worry would be stopping these should we ever have to...

Ok I read more on this subject elsewhere and it was a sad fact to read people struggle so much with registering with on the ENEL site. I could capture screens etc and post on my Google area, but that's a lot of work. Sure Modi has pointed out before that there are two areas to ENEL, you ned to know which... This is the little I posted, if anyone needs more, then get back.


Here https://www.enel.it/it-IT/#4   is their home page, near top RIGHT under the banner in the black box there is "Servizi", above is a number of icons. If you hover over either of the 1st two, one is "Maggior Tutela" and the other is "Libero Mercato", I believe the two different parts. I can only advise on the first "Maggior Tutela" as this is our service, your bill top RIGHT will tell you this if the same as ours. If you click this button more icons appear "La tua bolleta" takes you to the registration page. I've looked at the other option "Libero Mercato" and that is taking you to a different ENEL site, so it matters which you pick.

I just realised this person from Italymag may be on here, if so post away here or PM me if you prefer.

I have tried to find advice about paying my ENEL remotely from UK but so far the info is that I can't. I have a holiday home in Teramo, Abruzzo. Up to now I have paid someone else to collect my bills and pay them but that service has stopped due to distance and trying to get to my place during the landslides. I was over in June and paid it from the posted bill along with my water at the Post Office. I am at a loss as to what to do in future

You can pay it by bank transfer from abroad. The details are on ENEL's website under the section paga bolletta.

Welcome Mozza. You can pay ENEL bills from the UK, but you need a method of payment to do so. I'm pretty sure I read they will not accept a foreign credit card, but not absolutely sure. Other alternatives would be direct payment with something like Transferwise or currencyfair (there are others). You need to register on the ENEL site to view your bills.

If you need a Credit/Debit Card, most Banks and the Post Office do their own 'PrePay' cards that you can load up on-line or in a Bank and then you can use that for Bill payments over the phone or on-line.

Thank you all for you help and advice. Will look into them