Quality of service

Quality of service

The Quality of service provided to customers by network operators and suppliers brings together a set of measures regarding the service provided to customers (Commercial Quality of Service) and continuity of service levels fulfilled by operators (Technical Quality of Service).

ERSE, through the Quality of Service Code for the electricity and gas sectors (RQS), regulates the quality of service.

Commercial

The Commercial Quality of Service covers several issues regarding in person service, information, complaints and appointments with customers.

Depending on the subject, its importance for the customers and the development phase of the sector, ERSE can define overall indicators or guaranteed indicators, for each subject. For example, for queries, ERSE defined an overall indicator applicable to all queries as a whole. However, for complaints, ERSE defined a guaranteed indicator, applicable to every singular complaint. The setting of standards, i.e. minimum (or maximum) values for indicators that companies have to comply with, creates additional costs for the companies. For this reason, they must be set with great care and only when necessary to make sure that the customers, or users of a service, have their rights protected.

See here the indicators for the commercial quality of supply.

OVERALL INDICATORS	STANDARD	APPLICABLE
in person services with waiting time ≤ 20 min (in person services with waiting time ≤ 20 min) + (in person services with waiting time > 20 min) +(dropouts with waiting time > 20 min)	Not defined	DSO and Suppliers*
calls for reporting of failures with waiting time ≤ 60 s (calls for rep. of failures w/waiting time ≤ 60 s) + (calls for rep. of failures w/waiting time > 60 s)+(dropouts w/waiting time > 60 s)	85%	DSO and Suppliers*
commercial scope calls with waiting time ≤ 60 (com. scope calls with waiting time ≤ 60 s) + (com. scope calls with waiting time > 60 s)+(dropouts with waiting time > 60 s)	85%	DSO and Suppliers
queries answered ≤ 15 work days queries received	90%	DSO and Suppliers
sum of answering times queries answered	Not defined	TSO
Emergency Situations answered within 60 minutes	85%	Natural Gas DSO and Suppliers
Emergency Situations answered within 90 minutes	80%	Natural Gas TSO
meter readings made within less than 96 days after the last one Total of meter readings	92%	Eletricity DSO
meter readings made within less than 64 days after the last one Total of meter readings	98%	Natural Gas DSO
*Applicable to free market suppliers that choose to provide this service.

GUARANTEED INDICATORS	GOALS
Complaints (Answer)	DSO: within 15 working days Suppliers: term defined contractually with each customer (within 15 working days)
Scheduling of Activations of Supply	DSO must be able to schedule an activation of supply within the next three working days
Scheduling of deactivations of Supply	DSO must be able to schedule a deactivation of supply within the next three working days
Appointments with customers (Technical Visits)	DSO: arrival must be within a set interval of time no longer than two and a half hours (2h30m) Customer: must be present during the 2.30 interval until the DSO arrives at the premises Cancelling or rescheduling is allowed until 17h00 of the previous working day, to both customers and DSO
Technical Assistance	The DSO must arrive at the customer’s premises within two hours for priority customers and within four hours for other customers. If a low voltage customer communicates between 0h00 and 8h00, then the counting of the arrival time begins only at 8h00.
Reactivation of supply following deactivation due to customers' fault	The suppliers must request the reactivation to the DSO within 30 minutes after the correction of the situations (between customers and suppliers) that led to the deactivation. Eletricity Sector The DSO must arrive at the customer’s premises to perform the reactivation within: - 4 hours if the customer pays the urgent reactivation fee; - 12 hours for low voltage customers; - 8 hours for other customers. Natural Gas Sector - 12 hours domestic customers; - 8 hours : other customers; - 4 hours if the customer pays the urgent reactivation fee.

Technical

The technical aspect of quality of service is usually divided into two vectors:

Continuity of supply: number and duration of interruptions in the supply of electricity
Voltage quality: covers voltage disturbances and deviations in voltage magnitude or waveform from the optimum values

Continuity of supply characterizes and assesses situations in which there is an interruption in the supply of electricity to the delivery points of a network, whether customers or connections to other networks.

The continuity of supply indicators are general when they refer to the entire system, a set of customers or a geographical area. The indicators are individual when referring to each of the delivery points.

The transmission and distribution networks provide a sinusoidal alternating voltage whose frequency and amplitude must remain constant over time, and must respect the limits defined in the Quality of Service Code.

See here your county's continuity of supply indicators.

Monitoring Group

The Quality of Service Code (RQS), approved by ERSE, defines the existence of the Monitoring Group, in order to contribute to the deepening of the regulation of quality of service issues.

This group's skills are:

The monitoring of the provisions established in the RQS
The collection of contributions for future regulatory review processes
Harmonization of the practices adopted by the different entities.

The Monitoring Group is composed of representatives from the Direção-Geral de Energia e Geologia, regional directorates with the area of energy in the autonomous regions, network operators and other infrastructure and consumer associations.

Annual report

Exceptional events

Under the Quality of Service Code, exceptional events are deemed to have all of the following characteristics:

Low likelihood of the occurrence of the event or its consequences
They cause a significant reduction in the quality of service provided
It is not economically reasonable for the distribution system operator, traders or, in the case of autonomous regions, producers, to avoid all their consequences
The event and its consequences are not attributable to the distribution grid operator, traders or, in the case of autonomous regions, producers

An event is only considered exceptional after ERSE approval, following a request from a network operator or a trader.

The classification as an exceptional event allows its consequences to be excluded when verifying compliance with the standards for general and individual indicators of service continuity.

Exceptional events, compliance with the published Quality of Service Code, have been in force since 2014.

Exceptional events statistics