According to data published by Eurostat, Slovakia’s energy consumption showed an increase in December, which was a surprise to many as previous data suggested there was a decrease in energy consumption in the country.
Eurostat published a graph of changes in EU members’ gas consumption in December, which showed an increase in Slovakia, which has been a surprise for many as previous data showed a decrease.
Since the publication, analysts, consultants, and technicians have been discussing the cause. The Economy Ministry, which is responsible for the energy sector, believed Eurostat used the wrong data.
“If we were to make the graph today, the result would be quite similar,” Margarida Domingues de Carvalho from Eurostat’s media department said.
In a later statement, the Economy Ministry said that “data on monthly gas consumption is sent to Eurostat by the Administration of State Material Reserves, which collects them from the affected entities in the Slovak Republic,” spokeswoman Mária Pavlusík wrote in the statement.
The ministry also said it has informed the European Commission about the wrong information in the graph. Eurostat, however, does not see a reason to change the statistics.
“Until the issues of the provided data are resolved and their inclusion in the statistics, the data from the gas dispatching company, which is the company SPP – Distribution, should be considered as relevant data,” Pavlusik explained.
These statistics compare the months of 2022 to the months of 2021 and show an approximately 10% decrease in December. Such a decrease still places Slovakia in the group of five least-performing countries.
Eurostat’s graph compares the months of August to November 2022 with the longer-term five-year average for the period 2017 to 2021.
In many Western European countries, national agencies and ministries responsible for energy have started to regularly publish open data on electricity consumption, gas consumption or average temperatures together with historical comparisons.
No such portal has been established in Slovakia. Media outlets, therefore, have to ask for each statistic. Some agencies are even refusing to provide certain statistics, such as the long-term average of gas consumption.
(Michal Hudec | EURACTIV.sk)
Source: euractiv.com
