Gas and electricity consumption in Austria was significantly lower in August than a year ago. Gas savings were 17.8 percent from August 2021 and electricity consumption decreased by 4.5 percent, data from the regulatory agency E-Control shows. The trend of electricity generation has continued in recent months: with 4.8 TWh (terawatt hours), about 1.7 TWh or 26.7 percent less electricity was produced in August than in the previous year.
Hydroelectric power plants in particular fell sharply in August: both river power plants (-42.2 percent) and storage power plants (-30.6 percent) experienced a strong decline. At 0.70, the hydropower coefficient of the river power plants continued to approach the long-term low (0.61) of August 2003.
In contrast, the wind turbines produced 18.4 percent more electricity with 0.45 TWh compared to August 2021. About 9.3 percent of the total generation came from wind energy. In the same period, the thermal power plants produced about 0.75 TWh, about 5.7 percent more electrical energy.
Import overhang this year
While significantly more electricity was exported than imported in August 2021, there was an import surplus of about one terawatt hour in August this year.
Less gas used than last year
Gas consumption by end customers decreased by 17.8 percent in August to 3.24 TWh compared to the same month last year. By way of comparison: the total annual consumption in Austria is around 90 TWh. In August 2022, domestic production (including biogenic gas feed-in) was 0.58 TWh, 9.8 percent lower than last year’s result. The gas storage tanks were significantly more filled in August than in August 2021 – at the end of the month, the storage capacity was around 64 TWh, 20 TWh or 44.2 percent above the value of the previous year. The gas import surplus amounted to 15.85 TWh in August, which is 10.8 percent higher than a year ago.
Source: Krone
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