Natural gas consumption increases 13% in September

Natural gas consumption in Portugal increased 13.3% year-on-year in September. Growth was recorded both in the power production segment, with 19.5%, and in the conventional segment, which includes the remaining consumption, with 8.4%.
 
The accumulated consumption for the year is -1.5%, with the conventional segment showing a negative variation of 6%, while the power production segment gained 6.9%.
 
In September, electricity consumption was again very close to that of the same period of the previous year, as had been the case in August, with a drop of 0.2%, or 1.6% when correcting for the effects of temperature and number of working days. At the end of September, the annual change recorded a negative variation of 3.5%, or -4.2%, when correcting for temperature and working days.
 
In September, the hydropower capability index was 1.42 (historical average of 1), a value much higher than average, but with limited significance due to the still low values characteristic of this time of year. The wind-power capability index was also above the average regime, recording 1.07 (historical average of 1). Renewable production supplied 40% of consumption (including net exports) and non-renewable supplied the remaining 60%. 
 
At the end of the first nine months of the year, the annual hydropower capability index stood at 0.97 (historical average of 1), and the wind-power capability index was 0.89 (historical average of 1). In this period, renewable production supplied 56% of consumption, broken down into 24% for hydropower, 22% for wind power, 7% for biomass and 3% for photovoltaics. Non-renewable production supplied 38% of consumption, mainly with natural gas, with coal accounting for around 3% of consumption. The foreign trade balance supplied the remaining 6% of the domestic consumption.