Year-on-year (y\/y) growth in electricity consumption and production was negative for the third consecutive month in July. Y\/y growth in electricity consumption in July 2008 was 0.7% lower compared to July 2007 (this is, however, higher when compared to the -2.3% growth recorded in June). <\/p>\n
This is an indication that consumers are indeed using less energy than a year ago, but in July consumption increased compared to June (the month-on-month (m\/m) seasonally adjusted growth rate for electricity consumption increased from 1.3% in June to 2.3% in July). <\/p>\n
Growth in electricity production decreased by -1.3% in July 2008 compared to July 2007 (this is higher than the low -3.3% recorded in June). The m\/m seasonally adjusted growth rates for electricity production increased from -0.4% in June to 2.2% in July. <\/p>\n
The year-to-date growth in electricity consumption came in at -1.0% compared to the same period in 2007, and electricity production recorded a year-to-date growth rate of -0.6% (when compared to the same period last year). <\/p>\n
Y\/y growth in electricity imports slowed down in July to 10.7%, compared to 13.9% in June. Year-to-date (January-July) growth in electricity imports showed a decrease of -11.5%. <\/p>\n
The negative growth within this period was because in the first five months of this year, there was reduced availability of electricity from the Cahorra Bassa power station in Mozambique, which could be partly attributable to planned refurbishment of an Eskom converter station, as well as the unavailability of the transmission network in Zambia "owing to system instability in that country". <\/p>\n
In contrast, y\/y growth in electricity exports increased in July to -4.0%, compared to -7.7% in June; average year-to-date growth was negative at -3.3%. <\/p>\n
In conclusion, underlying electricity consumption remains relatively weak, compared to a year ago, despite the relative absence of load shedding; this is probably partly as a result of the fact that some mines are still not being given 100% electricity supply. <\/p>\n
However, one suspects also that consumers have indeed been affecting savings in their electricity usage. <\/p>\n
Furthermore, the negative growth reflects a general slowdown in demand for electricity associated with reduced overall economic activity. In the process, this has assisted in enabling the electricity needs of the country to be satisfied without having to invoke load shedding, despite the tightness of electricity supply.<\/p>\n
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Year-on-year (y\/y) growth in electricity consumption and production was negative for the third consecutive month in July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}