Residential electricity demand increases

10 December 2015

Residential electricity demand increases

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s latest Energy Quarterly shows that residential demand for electricity increased by 5.3 per cent in the September quarter 2015.

“This drove the overall rise in electricity demand of 1.7 per cent since the previous September quarter, with demand from the industrial and commercial sectors decreasing over the same period,” says Peter Ellis, MBIE’s Manager of Energy and Building Trends.

Mr Ellis says while electricity use per household had been falling since 2010 until recently, it increased by 0.3 per cent for the year ended September 2015 when compared with the year ended September 2014.

MBIE also released the latest data on residential electricity costs for the September quarter 2015, and the latest Quarterly Survey of Domestic Electricity Prices (QSDEP) indicator for the December quarter 2015. The average residential cost per unit of electricity decreased 2.8 per cent since the last September quarter.

“Both higher household electricity use and higher discounts contributed to the fall in the cost per unit of electricity,” Mr Ellis said.

The latest data also shows that coal production and exports fell in the September quarter alongside a continued fall in the international coal price. Coal exports for the quarter were the lowest since the June quarter 1997.

Meanwhile, in the September quarter 2015 the amount of electricity generated from renewables increased slightly to 81.8 per cent, up 0.1 percentage points since last September. Wind generation helped lift the renewable percentage, increasing eight per cent over the period. Solar generation also increased 92 per cent over the same period.

At the end of September 2015 there were 7,409 solar connections in New Zealand.

New Zealand Energy Quarterly:

http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/energy/energy-data-modelling/publications/new-zealand-energy-quarterly

Read about electricity cost and price monitoring:

http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/energy/energy-data-modelling/statistics/prices/electricity-prices

ENDS

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