Electricity consumption fell by 9.5% in the second week in force of the Government's energy saving plan

MADRID, 22 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Electricity consumption in Spain fell by 9.5% last week, the second since the measures of the energy saving plan approved by the Government at the beginning of August came into force, according to the general director of the Institute for Diversification and Saving of Energy (IDAE), Joan Groizard.

"Electricity consumption has dropped by 9.5% in one week and, compared to 2021, a little more than 8.5%, that is, we are talking about savings of more than 4% that we saw in the first week", Groizard said in statements to Cadena Ser collected by Europa Press.

Last week was the second week in force of the first package of measures of the energy saving plan that the Government has launched, and which will be extended in September, to achieve the commitment to reduce gas consumption by 7% until the end of the winter due to the threat of a supply cut by Russia.

These measures to reduce energy consumption include, mainly, limiting the temperature to a minimum of 27 degrees in summer and a maximum of 19 degrees in winter in public buildings and large areas, as well as the mandatory turning off of shop windows and the lighting of unoccupied public buildings after 10:00 p.m.

According to data from Red Eléctrica, the system operator, the peninsular demand from August 15 to 21 was 4,232 gigawatt hours (GWh), 10% lower than that of the previous week and 8.8% below that of the same week of 2021. However, last week there was one more holiday day, on August 15, which was a holiday throughout the country, in which the electricity demand is usually lower than on working days.

Last week, at a press conference to take stock of the first week of application of the measures, the Third Vice President of the Government and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, already estimated a 3.7% drop in electricity demand in the first week compared to the previous one.

Groizard indicated that this notable increase in the drop in electricity demand from one week to the next may be due to "awareness, companies that have taken a little longer to implement the measures."

Likewise, despite this decrease in electricity consumption, he warned that "more measures will be necessary". "We have asked the autonomous communities to present more measures to prepare a broader contingency plan to be able to present them in September," he recalled.

In this sense, he pointed out that this new package of measures will contemplate "obligations and recommendations", since "the more we save now with affordable measures, the better we will be preparing ourselves so that Putin can turn off the gas tap".

What the director general of the IDAE did emphasize is that the supply of natural gas in Spain "is guaranteed for the entire winter", although he acknowledged that the export capacity is limited.

In this regard, he referred to the possibility of a new gas interconnection through the Pyrenees with France, the so-called MidCat: "We have been a few years behind in electricity interconnection. If we talk about a European project, there must be everyone's involvement, to reach the Pyrenees could take 8-9 months, but if there is no one there to collect that gas it would not make sense".

Despite the opposition shown by France to a project that has already been backed even by Germany, Groizard stressed that, if carried out, "it has to be ready to transport hydrogen in the future" and that "being a project of European interest, the funding has to be European, not only Spaniards would pay for it".