Consumption of natural gas increases 9.3% in June

In June, the Portuguese domestic consumption of natural gas recorded a year-on-year growth of 9.3%, driven by the power production segment, which recorded a year-on-year variation of 26%, in contrast to the slight decrease of 0.5% seen in the conventional segment. 
 
In the first half of the year, natural gas consumption recorded a year-on-year change of 3.0%, as a result of increases of 8.6% in the electricity market and 1% in the conventional market.
 
In June, the consumption of electricity decreased 2% compared to the same month of the previous year. Correcting for the effects of temperature and working days, the drop is attenuated to 0.2%, nearly in line with the value observed in the same month of the previous year. At the end of the first half of the year, consumption recorded a year-on-year drop of 2.2%, or 1% when correcting for the effects of temperature and number of working days.
 
Inflows remained particularly low, with a hydropower capability index of only 0.38 (historical average of 1). In wind generation, with slightly above-average conditions, the corresponding capability index stood at 1.03 (historical average of 1). In June, renewable production fuelled 35% of the Portuguese domestic consumption, non-renewable production accounted for 57%, while the remaining 8% were supplied by imports.  
 
The hydropower capability index for the first half of the year stood at 0.56 (historical average of 1), whereas the wind-power capability index is close to the average value at 0.98 (historical average of 1). During this period, renewable production supplied 48% of consumption, broken down into wind power with 26%, hydropower with 15%, biomass with 5% and photovoltaics with 2%. Non-renewable production supplied 41% of consumption, with natural gas accounting for 27% and coal for 14%. Imports supplied around 11% of consumption.