Romania’s end-user electricity consumption decreased 1% y/y to 4.06TWh in April, which marks however a certain recovery after the sharp 4.5% y/y contraction reported in Q1, our calculations based on the statistics office reports show.

Consumption of electricity in the economy decreased 0.9% y/y to 3.05TWh in April after a 5.3% y/y plunge in Q1. Weak electricity use in Q1 pushed down the prices on the day-ahead market and created problems for thermal power plants that also see their market shrinking as more wind farms come online.

The certain recovery in consumption in April, however, did not help too much the thermal plants since wind farms are further gaining ground and hydropower generation returns to normal. Separately, the weaker thermal power generation has positive impact on the imports of energy items [natural gas mainly] -- which was a key driver, besides the exports of automobiles, in the CA surplus during Q1.

On the electricity production side, rising output of wind farms and the recovery of hydropower output to normal levels keep putting pressure on the thermal power plants. The output of the thermal plants decreased 29.2% y/y to 1.4TWh in April this year from nearly 2TWh a year earlier.

For Jan-Apr, the decline in thermal power generation was 20.3%. On the opposite, the generation of power in wind farms doubled to 0.47TWh in April, while the one in hydropower plants increased 22% y/y to 1.7TWh.