Heat consumption in Czechia was lowest last year in seven years of ERÚ data

Last year, heat consumption from district heating systems in Czechia fell by 9.4 percent year on year to 67.8 petajoules (PJ). It was the lowest in the seven years for which the Energy Regulatory Office (ERÚ) has recorded data. The low consumption was due to warm weather and energy-saving measures. ERÚ spokesman Michal Kebort informed the Czech News Agency (ČTK) of this today. The Czech Heating Association published last year's data in January, reporting that heat consumption from central heating plants fell by six percent year on year.

„Energy-saving measures and above-average outdoor temperatures are driving savings across the entire energy sector. Electricity consumption fell by more than four percent last year, gas consumption dropped by more than ten percent, and heat consumption declined by nine percent,“ said Stanislav Trávníček, chairman of the ERÚ Council.

Consumption of all three fell for the second year in a row.

Heat production fell by 7.1 percent year on year last year to 140.4 PJ. The biggest decline was at plants burning hard coal, at 14 percent. Plants burning brown coal cut production by 8.4 percent, those burning natural gas by eight percent, and those burning biomass by 3.7 percent. By contrast, heat production from nuclear fuels rose by more than 30 percent. This was partly due to the start of supplies from Temelín to České Budějovice in the last quarter of the year.

Households are traditionally the largest heat consumers. They used 30.2 PJ last year, 6.5 percent less year on year. Industry came next, consuming 17.7 PJ, a fall of 13.4 percent from the previous year. Consumption in the trade, services, education and healthcare sectors fell by 8.4 percent to 15.7 PJ.

The Czech Heating Association said in January that the heating season lasted 220 days in total last year, 14 days fewer than in 2022. The average for the past decade is two days longer than in 2022.

According to the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (ČHMÚ), last year was the warmest in the Czech Republic since 1961, when meteorologists began calculating the country's average annual temperatures. The average temperature reached 9.7 degrees Celsius, 1.4 degrees above the so-called 1991–2020 normal. Last year's average temperature exceeded the previous record, set in 2018, by one tenth of a degree. Average temperatures were above normal in ten months of the year.