Electricity Savings Update

Electricity Savings Update

The Winter Power Taskforce said today it was encouraged by current level of electricity savings and a temporary lift in hydro storage levels.

Winter Power Taskforce co-ordinator Patrick Strange said today that national savings effort climbed to 7.8 per cent for the 24 hours ended midnight Wednesday (May 21). Total demand for the 24 hours ended midnight Wednesday was 95.9 GWh, compared with 105.8 GWh last year.
Dr Strange said a major contributor to the high level of savings was unseasonably warm temperatures throughout the country reducing the need for space heating.

“This is obviously a very good result but we’ve had the weather on our side with unusually warm temperatures for this time of year. That said, the underlying level of savings is continuing its steady improvement.”

Dr Strange said the rain system crossing the country had also helped improve hydro storage levels, with the rain increasing hydro storage to 2164 GWh – 73 per cent of average.

He urged strong caution however, saying hydro storage levels were still only in line with the levels prevailing at the same time in 2001: “While this is an improvement on where we’ve been for the last few weeks, it is still a serious situation, particularly when we remember that we have higher demand and less thermal generation capacity than we had in 2001.

The weather forecast is now for drier, colder weather in the immediate future.

“We still have several months of winter in front of us and it is very important that we continue to conserve electricity in anticipation of colder, drier conditions,” he said.

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