Residents of Les Fonts, the neighbourhood divided between Terrassa and Sant Quirze del Vallès, say they have experienced recurring power cuts for several months. The outages can leave households unable to rely on electricity for everyday appliances, and the local residents’ association says some neighbours have linked repeated interruptions to appliance failures.

Mercè Martí Aroles, president of the Association of Owners and Residents of Les Fonts, said the failures initially appeared on individual streets before affecting wider parts of the neighbourhood. She said there have also been periods of around 30 minutes in which supply repeatedly switched off and on.

“It is not a problem for individuals, it is a territorial problem,” Martí Aroles said.

According to information provided by Terrassa City Council after it asked E-distribución, Endesa’s electricity distribution company, the incidents have mainly involved faults on the medium-voltage network, work to isolate defects in underground cables, vegetation close to cables, preventive measures and external incidents.

Les Fonts is supplied by two medium-voltage lines, meaning separate parts of the same neighbourhood can lose electricity at different times, according to the council’s response.

Fire-risk protocol can lengthen restoration time

The council said supply cuts can also be linked to storms or strong winds affecting overhead lines, or to faults in underground cables that may not be identified until they become persistent.

It also referred to the Alfa Plan, the Generalitat’s wildfire-risk alert protocol. When the plan reaches Alfa 2 or above, automatic reconnection is disabled on electricity lines with overhead sections so that staff can inspect them before power is restored.

For lines such as those serving Les Fonts, this process can take up to three hours in some areas. The line is manually reconnected after the inspection if Rural Agents, Catalonia’s countryside and environmental officers, have not detected a column of smoke.

What residents can do during an outage

Endesa advises residents to first check whether neighbours and shared areas are also affected. If several streets or the wider neighbourhood have lost supply, this is more likely to be a distribution-network fault or scheduled work than a problem inside one home.

  • Check the distributor’s official incident channels for notices about faults or planned work.
  • Contact the local distribution company for confirmation of the cause and an estimated restoration time.
  • Keep a record of the time and effects of repeated interruptions, particularly where appliances appear to have been damaged.

Residents can consult Endesa’s official power-cut guidance, which says distribution companies must normally give at least 24 hours’ notice of scheduled outages. The association has asked both Terrassa and Sant Quirze del Vallès councils for help after saying it had struggled to raise the issue collectively through the distributor’s automated reporting channels.

Reported by diarideterrassa.com, endesa.com, Diari de Terrassa.