Electricity consumers here in Spain will be able to choose their supplier from Wednesday, when the company supplying the electricity and the company marketing it cease to be the same entity.

It is hoped that the move will increase competitivity amongst electricity companies who will see the need to reduce prices and add incentives in order to attract customers.

As from July 1st the companies that currently own the electricity supply network will concentrate on expanding and maintaining this network, reading electricity meters and dealing with faults and every customer, be it a private household or a business, will have the right to choose the electricity supplier, which will be the company that sells the electricity to the customer.

Customers that do not make a choice by the beginning of July will not notice any change in the supply, but their existing supplier will have automatically assigned them a new 'supplier'.

Customers with a power supply of less than 10kw (as is normally the case in individual households) will be assigned to the Tarifa de Último Recurso (TUR) with a price fixed by the government.

Although energy prices have fallen, it is expected that the customer will pay more initially to cover the cost of the new system.  As a result, the government will be issuing a 'voucher' to freeze electricity costs for what it considers to be the five million most vulnerable households (families with three or more children where all the breadwinners are out of work or elderly people living on a basic pension).

Customers with a power supply of more than 10kw (most companies and some larger individual houses) will need to find the most suitable offer from the various suppliers available.  If they do not, their supply will remain unchanged, but they will be charged an additional 5% per quarter until April 2010.  If by then they haven't chosen a supplier, another provisional period will begin, lasting until November 2010, during which time they will be charged TUR plus 20%.