According to the EC reports published on Tuesday on the situation in both markets, the consumption of electricity and gas in the third quarter was up 3 percent. lower than the same period of 2019, but the relaxation of measures to contain the spread of Covid-19 brought the demand in the EU countries during this period much closer to “normal levels”. The EC underlines that at the end of Q3 2020 the recovery was uneven and prone to being impacted by rising pandemic indicators, warning that a second wave of the pandemic was imminent.
The structure of electricity production was influenced by relatively high prices of carbon dioxide emission allowances, weak demand, higher water levels and increasing solar energy production. This displaced conventional fossil fuel power plants, as a result of which electricity production from nuclear power plants fell by 16%. year on year (-28 TWh), and its share of production at the level of 23%, fell below the share of gas (24%). It was similar with the production of coal electricity, which also decreased – by 11 percent. year on year (-11 TWh), which was due to, inter alia, rising costs of carbon dioxide emission allowances. Thanks to the further conversion of coal to gas, gas power plants managed to keep production unchanged.
On the other hand, the report on the natural gas market says that in the third quarter, gas consumption in the EU slightly decreased (by 0.6% y / y) and amounted to 71 bcm. With a 29 percent decrease in gas production (approx. 12 billion m per cent), gas imports fell by 6 per cent. (up to 77 billion cubic meters), and LNG imports by 15 percent.