National energy demand registered a drop of almost 8% in May, which is explained by a warmer month and by the impact of rate segmentation. If you double-click, you see that all segments showed a contraction in year-on-year termsalthough Residential was the most marked.
According to the latest monthly report prepared by the Wholesale Electricity Market Administration Company (Cammesa), The demand for energy at the national level registered a drop of 7.8% year-on-year.
The Residential segment showed a year-on-year drop of 13%, although the rest also fell (see below). This segment is closely linked to the temperature and precisely that of May showed a higher average than expected.
Even if compared to the demand for April, there was an increase in Residential demand of 11.9% and this, once again, is explained by the lower temperatures that begin to be felt in May. In other words, despite the jump of almost 12% compared to April, demand was 13% lower than in the same month last year.
13% is the drop in energy demand in the Residential segment during May.
According to what the report states, the temperature of Greater Buenos Aires (covered 37% of the demand between January and May 2023) It had an average of 16.4 degrees Celsius. It was not only above the historical values for the period, but also some 2 degrees above what was recorded in May 2022.
16.4 degrees was the average temperature during May, in the region that accounts for most of the demand.
In summary, the average for May 2022 was 13.8 degrees, that of last May was 16.4 degrees. While the historical average for the month was 14.6 degrees.
This contraction is also linked to rate segmentation. May is the month in which subsidies were removed from all Tier 1 residential users, those with higher incomes or those who were not registered in the Registry of Access to Energy Subsidies (RASE).
Nearly 10 million people, comprising almost 30% of residential users, were left without State aid. in their electricity consumption. This data is not minor and is one of the reasons that explains the drop in demand for the month.
Segmentation: May’s energy demand
As noted above, May power demand was 7.8% lower year-on-year. While compared to April it increased by 4.2%.
The segment that recorded the greatest contraction was Residential with 13% year-on-year. In May it was 4.7 TWh, while the same month in 2022 closed at 6.3 TWh.
4.3% is what the demand for the Large Industrial and Commercial segment fell in May. The Commercial showed a contraction of 2.5%.
Parallel to this, the second was the Large Industrial and Commercial segment, which contracted 4.3%: this May it averaged 3.1 TWh, and the same month last year it had been 4.1 TWh.
The Commercial segment also showed a fall and was 2.5%, compared to May 2022. Like the Industrial segment, this year it averaged 3.1 TWh and last year it had been 4.1 TWh.
These three segments totaled a demand of 10.8 TWh in May, while in the same month last year it had gone from 14.5 TWh.
Segmentation: demand by segment and region
The accumulated electricity demand for the first five months of the year was 46% for the Residential segment, another 28% for the Commercial segment and 26% for the Large Industrial and Commercial segment.
Regarding the demand by region, taking into account the same period mentioned, it can be seen that the Greater Buenos Aires area represented approximately 37% of the total. The podium was completed by Litoral and Buenos Aires with 13% and 12%, respectively.
Then followed the Central region with 9% and followed by the Northwest and Northeast, with 8% each. Lastly, Cuyo was ranked with 6% and the list was completed by Comahue and Patagonia, with 4% each.