Q1 electricity consumption in Estonia climbs 2 pct on year
Estonian news - Krista April 23, 2012
Baltic News Service, 23.04.2012
In the first quarter of this year 2 percent more electricity was consumed in Estonia than during the corresponding period a year ago, while production of electric energy in Estonia fell 18 percent.
The reduction in generating in Estonia happened mostly as a result of decreased output by oil shale fueled power plants, the transmission system operator Elering said.
Compared with the first quarter of 2011, the amounts of electricity generated dropped in all the three Baltic countries and overall consumption surpassed production almost threefold, with the deficit expanding to almost two terawatt-hours.
Electricity consumption in Estonia grew 2 percent to 2,418 gigawatt-hours. The reason behind this primarily was an increase of similar size in consumption by large consumers, with the growth trend upheld by a one percent increase in consumption by small consuming entities.
As a result of decreased hydro capacities on the Daugava river and low price levels on electricity exchanges, production of electric energy in Latvia fell 26 percent compared with the first quarter of 2011. Consumption in Latvia was by 0.6 terawatt-hours bigger than production and about half of the balance was imported from Estonia.
In Lithuania a drop of 4 percent in production took place when output by the Kruonis hydro accumulation plant fell 11 percent. At the same time, output by the Lithuanian thermal electric power plant grew substantially.
Lithuania’s own output covered 41 percent of consumption in the first quarter and 70 percent of the electricity needed to bridge the gap was imported from third countries.
In the Nordic countries taken together electricity output grew by 7 percent over the first quarter of 2011 as a result of recent years’ biggest supply of water in hydro reservoirs.
The sole importer in the region in the first quarter was Finland, which imported 4.6 terawatt-hours. In all 3.5 terawatt-hours of electric energy was exported by the Nordic countries during the three-month period, compared with a deficit of 6.5 terawatt-hours suffered by the Nordic countries in the same period a year ago.