Leiria, Portugal, July 10, 2026 (Lusa) - The Energy Services Regulatory Authority (ERSE) received around 60 requests for intervention following about 100 customer complaints in the wake of the bad weather at the start of the year, according to data sent to Lusa.
In response to a request for information from Lusa regarding the six-month period following Storm Kristin, which severely affected the Leiria region, ERSE reported that approximately 100 complaints were registered and that the regulator received approximately 60 requests for intervention as a result.
“The complaints mainly concern the duration of power cuts, difficulties in communicating with the network operator, and losses incurred or damage to equipment,” explained the regulator, chaired by Pedro Verdelho.
The company most frequently cited is E-Redes, “the distribution network operator covering most of the mainland, including the Leiria region”, and “even if a customer lodges a complaint with their supplier, the matter is, in the vast majority of cases, ultimately referred to the network operator”, he noted.
ERSE clarified that “customer complaints must first be lodged with the supplier or the network operator”, specifying that its intervention “takes place after the complaint has been lodged with” those parties “whenever requested by complainants who seek further review after receiving a response from the companies concerned”.
“In addition, complaints submitted via companies’ complaints registers (both electronic and paper) are received by ERSE, as are the replies subsequently sent to complainants, but for the purpose of investigating evidence of administrative offences,” it noted.
The regulatory authority stated that “whenever a complainant who has lodged a complaint via a company’s complaints register receives a response from the company, they also receive a notification from ERSE”, informing them that they may request ERSE’s intervention, which “will seek to mediate an out-of-court resolution of any dispute, should they disagree with the response received”.
As for ERSE’s complaint classification system, which corresponds to that of the complaints register, “it only allows classification under ‘technical service quality’, which includes the vast majority of complaints resulting from the series of storms, but also the power cuts that occurred at the start of the year due to increased consumption caused by the cold weather”.
Given the possibility that there may have been a disruption to the quality of service provided and that customers may be entitled to compensation, ERSE noted that “the Service Quality Regulation stipulates that customers are entitled to automatic compensation whenever the regulatory limits regarding the number or annual duration of electricity supply interruptions are exceeded”.
“The network operators bear this compensation, which the regulator awards automatically and reflects on the supplier’s bill at the start of the year following the incident,” it observed, noting that “consumers receive this compensation when the regulator classifies the incident as non-exceptional”.
Should ERSE classify an incident as an exceptional event (which has not yet been decided in relation to Storm Kristin), “customers become eligible for individual compensation payments only if the incident is not classified as an exceptional event”, he added.
At least 19 people died in Portugal between late January and early March following the passage of storms Kristin, Leonardo and Marta, which also left several hundred people injured, homeless or displaced. More than half of the deaths occurred during recovery operations.
The storms, which battered the mainland for around three weeks, particularly in the Centro, Lisbon and Tagus Valley, and Alentejo regions, caused the total or partial destruction of thousands of homes, businesses and facilities; the collapse of trees and structures; power, water and communications cuts; and flooding, resulting in losses exceeding €5 billion SR/ADB // ADB.
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