Meter room upgrade in Seville, Spain: centralising electricity meters in apartment buildings

What a meter room upgrade is

In many older buildings in Seville the electricity meters are scattered: one on each landing, several in the entrance hall, some on the façade or even inside the flats. A meter room upgrade, known in Spain as centralización de contadores, brings them all together in a single room or cabinet in an accessible common area, with a new individual supply cable (derivación individual) running from there to each flat.

The change is governed by ITC-BT-16 of the Spanish Low Voltage Electrical Regulations, which sets where and how meters are installed, and by the distributor’s own technical rules. It usually goes hand in hand with renewing the rest of the building supply installation: the main protection box (ITC-BT-13), the main supply line (ITC-BT-14) and the individual supply cables (ITC-BT-15). We cover those in building supply installations.

Benefits for the building and for each neighbour

• More power for each home. A new supply cable of the correct size lets you increase your contracted power for air conditioning, an induction hob or a heat pump without the old cable getting in the way.
• Chargers in the garage. A charger in a communal parking space is normally fed from the flat meter. With centralised meters near the garage, the work is shorter and cheaper. See EV charger in a communal garage.
• Safety. Ageing communal cables, joints in stairwell boxes and meters in damp or unprotected places are removed.
• Easier readings and paperwork. The distributor reaches all the meters in one place.
• A more valuable building and fewer faults in the communal installations.

Buildings where we do it most

Centralisation is common in the traditional courtyard houses and older buildings of Triana, the city centre and La Macarena, where meters were added floor by floor as flats were renovated. Also in the 1960s and 1970s blocks of Nervión, Los Remedios or Heliópolis, whose communal lines were designed for far lower consumption than today’s, and in buildings in nearby towns such as San Juan de Aznalfarache or Camas.

They all share a pattern: neighbours who want more power or a charger and find that the building’s line cannot take any more. Centralisation solves the problem at the root.

How it is done, step by step

1. Visit and survey. We check the incoming supply, the main protection box, the main supply line, the position of each meter and the space available for the room or cabinet.
2. Technical documents. We prepare the technical design report or the engineering project required by the building’s power (ITC-BT-04) and an itemised quote for the owners’ meeting. See electrical design report and project.
3. Agreement of the comunidad (the community of owners) and coordination with the distributor to move the metering equipment.
4. Work in phases. We build the meter room and run the new supply cables through risers or communal conduits, with the old installation still in service.
5. Switch-over of each home to the new meter with short, announced cuts.
6. Certificate and legalisation. We issue the installation certificates (the boletín), register them with the Junta de Andalucía and hand the documentation to the administrator.

Link with the inspection and maintenance

A new meter room brings the communal installations into line, which shows at the next OCA inspection for buildings when the building is required to have one. From then on, building maintenance with periodic checks of the meter room avoids surprises.

Guide prices

Prices are a guide: the per-home range comes from market references and we fix the price for your building after the visit. See every other service for communities of owners on the homeowners’ associations page.