Consumption of electricity increases 5.4% in February

The consumption of electricity increased 5.4% year over year in February, mainly due to the lower temperatures felt this year. Correcting for the effects of temperature and working days, there is still a 1.6% increase, in line with the trend observed in recent months. The accumulated annual variation for the first two months of the year is now 2.2%, or 1.5% when correcting for temperature and working days.

The hydrological conditions remained extremely negative, with the hydropower capability index standing at 0.37 (historical average of 1). The hydrological conditions remained extremely negative, with the hydropower capability index standing at 0.92 (historical average of 1). Thus, production from renewable sources remained lower than normal for this time of the year, supplying 48% of electricity consumption. Production from non-renewable sources supplied 51%, while the remaining 1% was supplied using imports.

In the first two months of the year, the hydropower capability index stands at 0.39 (historical average equal to 1), and the wind-power capability index is 1.00 (historical average equal to 1). During the same period, renewable production supplied 47% of the consumption, with the hydroelectric plants accounting for 13% of the consumption, wind farms for 28%, biomass for 5% and photovoltaic for 1.2%. Non-renewable production supplied the remaining 53% of consumption, broken down between natural gas, at around 30%, and coal, at 23%. The foreign trade balance is practically null.

In the natural gas market, a growth trend was also observed, with variation of 1.8% vis-à-vis the same month in the previous year. In the conventional segment, there was a variation of 3.2%, while in the electricity market, there was a small reduction of 1%, with consumptions, however, remaining very high in this segment due to the lower hydroelectric production. At the end of February, the consumption of natural gas presents practically no variation year over year stemming from a decrease of 1.3% in the conventional segment and from a growth of 2.7% in the electricity market.