Power consumption makes historic drop

The ABC has a report on falling power demand on the local grid - its a shame summer peaks aren't dropping as well - as we are in a weird situation of investing heavily in transmission infrastructure to satisfy falling aggregate demand - Power consumption makes historic drop.

One of Australia's largest electricity distributors says it is experiencing a "historic" cut in households' demand for power.

Ausgrid, which provides power to much of New South Wales, has announced demand for its electricity by regular households has fallen 2 per cent each year for the past four years. It is the first time the company has seen a fall in demand since the 1950s.

"If you go right back to the 1950s, residential consumption has continued to rise year on year, and in around 2006, we saw that plateau," Ausgrid energy efficiency specialist Paul Myors said.

Ausgrid says the drop is caused by consumers switching to energy efficient hot water systems and light bulbs after seeing their power bills go through the roof.

"One example where we have seen most strongly is with residential hot water because we often separately meter this in households," Mr Myors said. "We've seen reductions even greater than 2 per cent, even up to 8 per cent per year," he said.

It is expected the Australian Energy Market Operator will also announce a fall in power demand of 5 to 6 per cent in the next decade.