Czech heat consumption rose 3.1% year on year in third quarter

Heat consumption from district heating in Czechia rose 3.1 percent year on year to 6.9 petajoules (PJ) in the third quarter of this year. This is according to statistics from the Energy Regulatory Office (ERÚ). The increase was driven mainly by the colder-than-usual September and an earlier start to the heating season. By contrast, consumption in industry fell in recent months.

„Heat consumption in this year’s third quarter was unusual. In the industrial category, it declined year on year in every month, while household consumption in July and August was almost identical to a year earlier. But the colder September had such a significant impact on the statistics that it pushed household consumption up 16.6 percent for the quarter as a whole and total consumption up by more than three percent,“ said Stanislav Trávníček, chairman of the ERÚ Council.

District heating plants in Czechia started the heating season in mid-September this year because of the cold weather, a month earlier than last year. This had a significant impact on the quarterly statistics: September consumption was 45.3 percent higher than a year earlier.

Industrial consumption fell by 14.8 percent over the third quarter as a whole. Lower in-house consumption at industrial heating plants also reduced gross production, which fell 6 percent year on year to 20.1 PJ. Here, too, there was a marked contrast between the holiday months and September. Production fell year on year by 8.3 percent in July and 11.5 percent in August, but rose by 1.6 percent in September.

„The statistics were most significantly affected by lower heat production from coal. Although heating plants continued to use lignite most often, year-on-year production from it fell by almost 22 percent, to 5.4 PJ. This trend was particularly evident in the Karlovy Vary Region, where almost half as much heat was produced as a year earlier,“ Trávníček noted. The situation in the Karlovy Vary Region is due to a decline in Sokolovská uhelná’s in-house consumption.

In the third quarter, 0.7 PJ of heat was produced from hard coal, down 41.1 percent year on year. This fuel is used almost exclusively in the Moravian-Silesian Region, where the sharp decline is linked to the situation at Liberty Ostrava. The fall in heat production from coal was offset by an increase in the use of other fuels, specifically natural gas and biomass. More than half of the heat (10.6 PJ) was generated through combined heat and power (CHP) production.

The previous heating season in Czechia was, by contrast, the shortest and warmest in the past 60 years. Czech heating plants recorded their lowest heat deliveries, up to a tenth below average. They attributed this mainly to the exceptionally warm weather during the season.