Official: Russia’s power consumption falls by 5% in June

MOSCOW, Jun 10 (PRIME) – June contraction of power consumption in Russia’s power system was unchanged from 5% in May on the year, Deputy Energy Minister Yevgeny Grabchak said in an online conference on Wednesday.

“If we look at May, we had an about 5% (contraction) then, and the decrease was about 3% in April. Only the first week of June has passed, and we see the level of May, which is a 5% fall in the energy system in general. We are yet to reach the level of April,” he said.

Russia’s combined contraction of power consumption should not exceed 2.2% in 2020, he said.

“We see a tendency for increase of consumption, and hope … that the overall annual consumption will not exceed 2.2%,” he said.

Grabchak also said that the OPEC+ oil output reduction deal cuts Russia’s power consumption by 1% in monthly terms. “The power systems of the Ural and Volga regions suffer most, as the contraction connected to the OPEC deal is the highest there,” he said.

The ministry previously developed three scenarios for the power sector depending on the impact of the coronavirus and quarantine measures. Under the optimistic scenario, power consumption will fall by 3.6% in 2020, under the pessimistic plan by 8.2%, and the shock scenario presumes a slump by 10.1%.

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