Power consumption declines

The government announced on Friday it will spend another 435 million euros next month to support households and companies facing extremely high electricity rates, but data show Greeks are increasingly saving on energy consumption with tangible results.

For a fourth consecutive month in October, according to grid operator ADMIE’s monthly energy report, the total demand for electricity decreased by 9.52% compared to October 2021. This follows a 3.27% drop in demand in September, 13.17% in August and 11.78% in July. In October the reduction exceeded 300 gigawatt-hours, as from 3,971 GWh last year, this year the demand was 3,604 GWh.

The largest decrease came from the distribution network to which households and small and medium enterprises are connected, which came to 8.7%. 

In the large energy-intensive industries that are high-voltage consumers the drop reached 5.4% and according to industry circles it was basically due to mining company LARCO.

In October, the plunge in domestic electricity production was even greater, reaching 22.9%, resulting in a significant part of demand being covered by imports, which were up 30.74% compared to October 2021. That was due to the higher electricity prices in the Greek market compared to neighboring markets, despite the high participation of renewables, which reached a percentage of 41.3%. Natural gas production fell by 58.2% and lignite production by 23.3%.

The mild weather conditions contributed to the decrease in demand. Going into winter, however, electricity hikes for households who consume up to 500 kilowatt-hours will be 90% covered by the subsidy of 22.1 euro cents per KWh, to the level of 14-17.7 cents/KWh and for customers of companies that provide consistency discounts between 7.7 and 9.9 cents/KWh.

The December subsidies were announced on Friday by the minister of environment and energy, Kostas Skrekas, and they total €435 million, of which €282 million is for household bills.