POWER
Swiss hydropower reserves last week – calendar week 51 – declined for the ninth consecutive week to be at 54% of capacity, however, the fall slowed from the previous week, BFE data showed.
- Reserves widened the deficit to the five-year average to 12.2 points last week from 10.8 points the week before.
- Stocks also widened the deficit to the long-term average – since 1997 – last week to 7 points from 6.1 points the week before.
- Power demand in Switzerland last week fell to an average of 8.25GW from 8.56GW the week before.
- Swiss hydropower generation from pumped storage last week fell by 418MW to 628MW. Output from reservoirs declined by 735MW to 1.33GW while run-of-river generation was at 171MW down from 197MW.
- Nuclear generation in Switzerland was stable last week at 2.96GW.
- The L'Ecreuleuse measuring point saw 40cm of new snow in the past seven days, up from 18cm in the previous week, White Risk data showed.
- There was around 27.93mm of precipitation in the hydro-intensive region of Sion last week, up compared to none the week prior.
- Looking ahead, the latest Bloomberg 6-10 day ECMWF weather forecast for this week suggested Sion have basically 0mm of rain until 2 January, with precipitation expected to reach between 0.3-7.5mm over 3-7 January.
The latest Swiss hydro balance is forecast to end at -2.8TWh on 8 January, revised up slightly from -2.84TWh for the same day.
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