German 2013 electricity demand down 2% year on year

Weaker demand from industrial buyers has caused Germany’s electricity consumption to decrease by around 2% year on year in 2013, according to preliminary figures published by the country’s association of energy and water industries BDEW on Monday.

Electricity consumption dropped to 596TWh this year, down from 607TWh in 2012, BDEW said.

Apart from lower demand from industrial consumers, the decrease was also due to increasing efficiency of power consumption as well as the additional leap day in February 2012, the association added.

In contrast, Germany’s gas demand rose by 7% year on year in 2013 on the back of below-average temperatures during the first half of the year, according to the preliminary data.

The fall in consumption adds to the bearish picture across the continent’s electricity markets in 2013.

In July, Swedish utility Vattenfall announced the splitting of its operations, saying in a statement: “The market [for European energy producers] will not recover in the foreseeable future”, prompting the company to write down the value of some power generation assets, mainly in Germany and the Netherlands ( see EDEM 23 July 2013 ).

At the start of this winter, wholesale market data showed risk premium had ironed out across winter contracts on Europe’s electricity markets ahead of the high-demand season, which reflected an increase in confidence in the ability of supply to meet demand spanning the season ( see EDEM 4 October 2013 ). Johanna Blackader