Plugged into Portugal

Steve Taylor

Mains electricity is present almost anywhere you’re likely to live in the world, and certainly on the Silver Coast, but when moving from another country, there can be some pitfalls and surprises.
Portugal has electricity at 230V AC at 50Hz. Like most of Europe, appliances connect using a plug with 2 round pins. The consumer unit (or “fuse box”) in your apartment or house will, if it’s less than about 30 years old, resemble the ones in the rest of Europe. So if you’re moving to Portugal from most of the rest of the EU, you really have nothing to do, bring your appliances, plug in, and away you go. For most other countries in the world, you will only have to change the plugs on your appliances.
However, North and Central America have 120V 60Hz electricity. Although that sounds completely different, for the purposes of most electrical appliances these days it does not matter. The charger for your laptop, your desktop computer, printer, TV, all low-current devices these days are made to cope with pretty much any mains voltage and frequency. Obviously you should check specific devices, somewhere on your power supply, or the back of your gadget, it will say something like “Input: 100-240V 50/60Hz”, which tells you it will work on either North American or European electricity. Larger appliances, which usually have AC motors, will not work across the Atlantic divide.. Washing machines, dryers, ovens, all that big stuff, will almost certainly not work if you bring it from North America. Also some smaller things like toasters and kettles.
Something that may disappoint you in your new home is the amount of electricity available to you. If you’re coming from the UK, for instance, a 100A single phase domestic supply is the norm. With the 30 or 40 amps you get in Portugal it will come as a shock, so to speak, when you switch on the oven and all your electricity trips out because something else is already running. This can be caused mainly by two things; bad allocation of circuits in your home, meaning that two high current items are running on the same circuit, or just lack of incoming supply. You can ask your supplier (eg EDP) to increase the “potencia”, which is the amount of current they will let you have, though there are limits to that. You will pay more per month if you do. Another solution to the current supply problem is that many homes in Portugal have a 3 phase supply, which you probably did not have before you moved to Portugal. This means three separate feeds to you, and it is a way of getting more electricity into a building without correspondingly thick cables. Three phase distribution is in fact the way electricity is sent around countries, which is why cables on pylons are always in threes or sixes. It’s more efficient. So if you have three phase supply in your home, when adding more circuits and appliances, you need to make sure the load is spread reasonably well across the three phases. This kind of supply is good for people with electric cars, as 22kW car chargers need a three phase supply.
The situation overall is down to two things. First, the inadequacy of the infrastructure; the Portuguese electricity grid, at least in this area, was never designed to cope with the current situation. There are more dwellings and the demands are more substantial, than when the local electricity grid was put in place. Doing something about that would cost a huge amount. Second, older buildings were not wired with modern appliances and usage in mind, and have often been added to piecemeal, meaning that many years later there is a chaotic mess that is probably best resolved by rewiring completely.
A common problem in the Silver Coast area is failure of circuits because of corrosion. The damp in the air gets into electrical connectors and makes them rust. This is particularly bad in outdoor wiring, so if you have a lot of lights in your garden or other wiring out there, it is probably a question of when, not if, something stops working. When wiring things outside, it is a good idea to smother connector blocks with silicone, to keep water out of the connectors. The problem is not confined to the outdoors. Condensation can get into indoor connectors, especially when properties are left empty for a long time. The square white plastic covers on the walls of your home cover junction boxes; domestic wiring in Portugal isn’t allowed to go round more than two corners without having a junction box. This makes it easier to replace or add to wiring, but means you have connectors that might one day rust and fail. If something stops working, the problem might be behind a plastic junction cover.
You can of course reduce your electricity bill by installing solar panels, but that’s a whole subject in itself, and can be left for another time. ■

Acknowledgements: Lucy Gray (Feature editor)