Hydro Lakes Stable During March

New Zealand’s hydro lake storage remained stable during March 2010, with a slow decline during the early part of the month being reversed by very large inflows between March 22nd and 25th.

At the beginning of March 2010, New Zealand’s hydro-electric storage stood at 3139 GigaWatt hours (GWh), 98% of average for the time of year. By the end of the month, this had improved to 3191 GWh, 102% of average. Lake levels slowly declined until the 21st when the trend turned to a slow recovery.

Inflows were above average on ten days. Below average inflows were recorded from the 4th to the 21st and from the 28th to the 30th of March. Inflows were seriously deficient (below 50% of average) on nine days. The week ending March 20th was a dry week, with inflows never climbing above 48% of average for the time of year.

The trend in interisland transfers changed during March. South-to-north transfers via the Cook Strait cables exceeded southbound on 16 days. Southbound transfers exceeded the more normal northbound transfers on 14 days, with transfers in each direction equal on March 10th.

Declining load levels over the previous three years were reversed during March 2010 with average daily demand being 101.2 GWh. Last March, the average daily demand was 95.1 GWh, and was 100.8 GWh in 2008 and 115.4 GWh in 2007.

Peak load also returned to former levels with the peak load for March 2010 being 108.1 GWh, recorded on the 10th. Peak load in the three previous March months was 104 GWh in 2009, 109.3 GWh in 2008 and 109.1 GWh in 2007.

[ Compiled from data supplied by M-Co ]

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