Ministry: Russia’s power consumption falls 4.7% since March 30

MOSCOW, Jul 9 (PRIME) -- Russia’s consumption of power has shrank by 4.7% on the year since March 30 when the self-isolation regime began, but it has been rising for the past two weeks, Deputy Energy Minister Yevgeny Grabchak said on Thursday during roundtable talks organized by the State Duma, the parliament’s lower chamber.

“Consumption in the power system has been falling since the beginning of the year, and we registered it contraction by almost 2.4% as compared with the same period last year. During the self-isolation period that started on March 30, the decrease amounted to about 4.7% taking into account the factor of air temperature,” he said without providing absolute figures.

“The results were not encouraging, they showed a 5.8% contraction as compared with the previous year, but we have been registering a rising trend in power consumption for two weeks in a row.”

The ministry expects power consumption to recover to the pre-crisis pre-pandemic levels until the end of 2020, he added.

End %%md/jst%%