In the first month of the year, the energy demand was 6,393.42 GWh-month, which means that it increased 1.39%, compared to the national consumption of January 2022, when the demand was 6,277.91 GWh -month.
According to XM, the company that coordinates the operation of the National Interconnected System (SIN) and manages the Wholesale Energy Market (MEM), of the ten regions of the country, nine presented an increase in their demand compared to January of the previous year. These are: Guaviare with 13.17%, East 8.08%, Center 7.38%, Caribbean 6.24%, Antioquia 3.77%, THC (Tolima, Huila and Caquetá) 1.89%, South 1.86%, CQR (Caldas, Quindío and Risaralda) 1.68% and Valle 0.85%. For its part, Chocó was the only region that presented a decrease in energy consumption, of 1.5%.
Jaime Alejandro Zapata Uribe, manager of the XM National Dispatch Center, said that “it is important to note that, although the country had growth in demand in general terms in January 2023, compared to the same period in 2022, due to For the third consecutive month there is a decrease in the energy consumption of the regulated market (residential consumption and small businesses)”.
The manager points out that “within the economic activities with the highest growth in energy demand in the unregulated market for the month of January compared to the same month of 2022, the following stand out: exploitation of mines and quarries with an increase of 20.27 % and transport and storage with 3.59%”.
averages
It is important to take into account that the growth in the demand for electrical energy is calculated as the weighted average of the growth of the different types of days (business days, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays). With this type of calculation, the fluctuations that occur in the monthly monitoring, caused by the dependence of energy consumption in relation to the number of days presented in the month of analysis, decrease.
Broken down by type of consumer, in residential consumption and small businesses (regulated market) there was a decrease of 4.23% and, for its part, industry and commerce consumption (non-regulated market) decreased 0.14% with respect to to the same month of the previous year.
Regions
On the other hand, the administrator pointed out that Guaviare is the region of the country with the highest growth in the demand for electricity in January 2023 with an increase of 13.17%, followed by Oriente with 8.08%, Center with 7.38 %, Caribbean with 6.24%, Antioquia with 3.77%, THC (Tolima, Huila and Caquetá) with 1.89%, South with 1.86%, CQR (Caldas, Quindío and Risaralda) with 1.68% and Valle with 0.85%.
For its part, the only region that presented a decrease in energy consumption was Chocó, with less than 1.5%. At XM we continue to work 24 hours a day so that Colombians have energy service, maintaining maximum reliability and quality.
reservoirs
On the other hand, in January the aggregate level of the electric power generation reservoirs was 71.5% of the useful volume, 7.5 points below the level reported at the end of December 2022 (79%) and 3 .7 points above the same month in 2022 (67.8%).
In turn, contributions were 42.5% above the historical average. When performing the analysis by hydrological regions, the Caribbean reservoirs reached 90.8% of their useful volume, followed by Antioquia with 80.8%, Center with 67.8% Oriente with 63.8%, and Valle with 59.0 %.
During the past month, the amount of water evacuated from the reservoirs through landfills is equivalent to 1,604.89 GWh, of which 1,594.34 GWh correspond to Hidroituango. The regions that presented discharges were: Antioquia with 1,594.67 GWh and Centro with 10.22 GWh.
Water contributions closed the month with an average of 42.5% above the historical monthly average. The water contributions by region were: Center with 193.0%, East with 162.1%, Caribbean with 154.7%, Valle with 132.2% and Antioquia with 130.7%.
In total, 6,693.06 GWh were generated in January, a figure higher than the demand to respond to energy exports. On average during the month, energy generation was 215,905 GWh-day, 1.06% more compared to the generation of December 2022, which was 213,645 GWh-day.
85.98% of the generation, equivalent to 185,641 average GWh-day, was the product of renewable resources, while the remaining 14.02%, equivalent to 30,264 average GWh-day, was from non-renewable resources.