The company with which EMEL had a contract is no longer able to provide electricity services and has left the GIRA system helpless.

The opening of new GIRA stations to the public usually takes a long time - between the installation of the equipment and the activation of the docks, there is a process of electrical connections and technical configurations that need to be followed. EMEL also needs to ensure that it has enough bicycles on its side to ensure the expansion of the system. In the case of around 50 stations installed during the summerThe delay is justified by the closure of HEN, a small electricity company in Guarda.
A HEN was the winner of a public tender opened in August by EMEL for "supply of electricity at medium voltage (MV), special low voltage (BTE) and normal low voltage (BTN)" for the GIRA shared bicycle system. The procedure had a base value of 950,000 euros, but the contract that was signed between EMEL and HEN it came to less than a third of that amount: 300 thousand euros. Including the winner HEN, a total of eight companies competed, including EDP, Endesa, Iberdrola and Galp.
Only HEN, in mid-October, is no longer in a position to sell electricity, information it has communicated to the sector regulator - Entidade Reguladora dos Serviços Energéticos (ERSE) - with the result that its approximately 3900 customers were transferred to the SU Electricity. This entity is the so-called "supplier of last resort" or SRB, i.e. the company that in the liberalized electricity market guarantees that no one or no entity, because of some other supplier, runs out of electricity.. It is also SU Electricity that provides the so-called "social electricity tariff", with more affordable prices for economically vulnerable people.
So, as HEN has failed, SU Electricity steps in to ensure that the electricity supply continues. The problem: SU Electricity only guarantees installations that are already active, it cannot install new ones, as EMEL explained to Público newspaper. EMEL, as the manager of GIRA, therefore needs to find a new energy company to connect the new stations to the national electricity grid and provide the respective energy service. The company told Público that it was "in the process of public procurement (which has to follow its procedures) to contract a new energy supplier" and added that "as soon as this procedure is complete, we will begin the process of completing the stations, i.e. final connections, communications tests, etc.". The tender has not yet been launched.
GIRA currently has 102 active stations and around 750 bicycles on the network. There are new stations to be opened in Benfica, São Domingos de Benfica, Carnide, Lumiar/Telheiras and on the 24 de Julho/Avenida da Índia axis up to Restelo, but also along Avenida Almirante Reis, Amoreiras, Campolide and Campo de Ourique. In recent months, stations have opened in Olivais and in the axis of the Alameda das Linhas de Torresas well as the stations that have been waiting for a long time to open in the University City and in the riverside area of Alcântara/Belém.
GIRA entered Lisbon at the end of 2017 and the first promise was for a system with 140 stations and 1,400 bicycles, which would be supplied by Órbita, a company that has since gone bankrupt. The MEO/Soltráfego consortium has secured 730 new bicycles this year and EMEL for the acquisition of another 1,700 to 2,000 bikes - the public tender is open and the proposals are being evaluated. Another tender is also currently active for the purchase of 50 more GIRA stations; it is also in the process of evaluating proposals.