New Zealand’s hydroelectric lake storage declined again during June, a month during which demand was generally lower than last year; as were inflows.
New Zealand’s hydroelectric lake storage stood at 2418 GWh (GigaWatt hours) 84% of average for the time of year on June 1st 2007, declining to 74% of average (1997 GWh) by month’s end.
The month started well with above average inflows during the first week allowing storage to improve slightly, even climbing above last year’s figures between the 5th and 10th. However, a steep decline in water flowing into the lakes saw inflows fall toward 52% of average on June 17th after which a brief improvement occurred. Inflows again declined to the low 50 percentiles on the 26th, with a sharp recovery on the 30th.
National demand was lower than last year on 19 days, reflecting the warmer conditions earlier in June. Colder weather set in at the end of June, and national demand peaked for the month at 131.9 GWh on the 29th.
The declining inflows and increased demand caused national storage to decline consistently from June 10th.
Transfers via the Cook Strait cables returned to the normal pattern with south-to-north transfers of energy exceeding north-to-south on 20 days.
National storage was well below average at the end of the month, being lower than figures reported since 2004, but still comfortably above the dry year, 1992.
[Compiled from data supplied by M-co.]