New Zealand’s hydro-electric storage remained above average during December, following a dramatic improvement during late November.
At the beginning of December 2008 New Zealand’s hydro-electric storage stood at 3073 GWh (GigaWatt hours), 116% of average for the time of year. Levels improved during the month, standing at 3660 GWh, 125% of average, by month’s end.
Storage improved during the first week of December, remaining stable throughout the rest of the month. Levels were consistently above the previous December’s, and consistently above average.
In-flows were above average on 11 days.
South-to-north transfers via the Cook Strait cable exceeded southbound transfers on all 31 days. Records show that no energy was transferred southward during December.
Matching week-day for week-day, demand was lower than December 2007 on 19 days. Peak load of 106.6 GWh occurred on December 9th, lower than the previous December when peak load of 111.8 GWh occurred on the 11th.
The average daily load during December was 92.7 GWh compared with the daily average of 98.7 GWh during December 2007.
The continued partial shutdown at the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, due to a transformer failure, accounted for a substantial portion of the reduced load.
[Compiled from data supplied by M-co.]