The organization relies on Royal Decree 1955/2000, which establishes the obligation to apply discounts on billing when electricity supply quality levels are not met. Facua maintains that these compensations should have been applied during the blackout.
Facua takes five electricity distributors to the CNMC for the blackout
Facua-Consumidores en Acción has reported to the National Markets and Competition Commission five electricity distributors for not having applied discounts on their customers' billing after the general blackout of April 28, 2025.
The companies denounced are Viesgo Distribución, e-Distribución, E-redes, UFD Naturgy and i-DE Iberdrola. The association maintains that, when supply interruptions occur that exceed the established quality thresholds, distributors must compensate affected consumers through bill discounts.
According to Facua, it filed claims against the main distributors without having obtained a response to date. For this reason, it has asked the CNMC to open sanctioning proceedings and to oblige the companies to apply the corresponding compensations.
What Royal Decree 1955/2000 Says
The central point of the complaint lies in Royal Decree 1955/2000, which regulates the activities of transport, distribution, commercialization, supply, and authorization of electric power facilities.
Facua cites specifically article 105.2, which establishes that, in case of non-compliance with the quality of service, distributors must apply discounts on billing within the first quarter of the year following the non-compliance.
The association interprets that, given that the blackout occurred on April 28, 2025, the discounts should have been applied during the first quarter of 2026.
How much money could an affected consumer recover
The exact amount of compensation is not the same for all consumers. It depends on factors such as the contracted power, the duration of the outage, the location of the home, the type of contract, and the classification of the area where the interruption occurred.
Facua takes as a reference a case in which the compensation would amount to 22.96 euros, which would rise to 25.38 euros when adding the current taxes, including VAT and the special tax on electricity.
The organization underlines, however, that each distributor should be the one to calculate ex officio the exact amount for each client, because the variables change according to each supply.
How compensation for an electrical outage is calculated
The calculation is based on Order ECO/797/2002, which approves the procedure for measuring and controlling the continuity of the electricity supply. This standard specifies how interruptions must be measured and how discounts must be applied when quality levels are not met.
According to the formula mentioned by Facua, the number of kilowatts of contracted power is multiplied by five times the average annual price of the kilowatt-hour consumed. Then, the result is adjusted according to the number of hours the blackout lasted and the area where the home is located.
The ECO/797/2002 Order itself establishes that the discount on billing is annual and that the invoice must include a list of incidents that have affected the supply, with their duration, origin, and reasons for their calculation or exclusion.
Why Facua speaks of violation of rights
Facua considers that the distributors have violated consumers' rights by not applying the compensations on time. The association maintains that it is not enough for users to claim individually, but that the discount should have been incorporated automatically in the corresponding billing.
The complaint is also supported by Law 24/2013 of the Electricity Sector, which classifies as a serious infraction the reiterated non-compliance with the obligation to apply the corresponding discounts to consumers affected by interruptions under the conditions provided for by the regulations.
The organization asks the CNMC to investigate whether the companies breached their obligations and, if so, to impose sanctions.
Which companies are affected
The five distributors denounced by Facua cover a very relevant part of the electricity supply in Spain.
The complaint affects:
- Viesgo Distribución
- e-Distribución
- E-redes
- UFD Naturgy
- i-DE Iberdrola
The key here is to distinguish between distributor and marketer. The marketer is the company with which the consumer contracts electricity and receives the bill. The distributor is responsible for the electrical grid in each area and the quality of the supply. In power outages, the responsibility for continuity of supply falls on the distributor.
What can happen now
The CNMC will have to study the complaint and decide whether to open a sanctioning file. If it finds indications of non-compliance, it could investigate the distributors and demand information on how they managed the compensations for the April 2025 blackout.
Facua demands that, in addition to possible sanctions, companies be urged to apply pending discounts to affected consumers.
The case could become a relevant battle because it affects millions of users who suffered interruptions during the general blackout and because it focuses on a little-known obligation: power outages can generate automatic compensation if they exceed legal quality thresholds.
All the keys for consumers
The complaint by Facua is summarized in a simple idea: if a blackout exceeds the quality limits of the supply, the regulations oblige compensation to consumers through discounts on the bill. The association maintains that these compensations were not applied within the timeframe provided by Royal Decree 1955/2000 and Order ECO/797/2002.
That is why it has taken five distributors to the CNMC. For consumers, the key will be to check if their bills for the first quarter of 2026 show any discount associated with the cut on April 28, 2025. If it does not appear, they could claim against their marketer and the distributor in their area, in addition to going to consumer organizations or the CNMC itself.