On this Wednesday, at 14:00 hours and in the middle of a general strike day, the demand for electricity across the whole country stood at 34,225 megawatts (MW), compared with the 34,313 MW recorded yesterday at the same time, according to data from Red Eléctrica de España (REE). This difference implies a very slight drop of 0.25%.
At the same time, the system operator pointed out that national real demand in that time slot was 2.37% lower than the 35,058 MW that had been forecast for that moment of the day.
As the hours went by, the contrast in consumption between the previous day’s session and the current call for a general strike has been narrowing. At first thing, at 8:30, the cut in electricity demand was around 9.5%; at 10:00 hours the decline moderated to 6.6%, and, by 14:00 hours, it was limited to 0.25%.
Electricity use is considered a usual barometer for assessing the scope of a general strike, since when factories, shops, or other productive activities are brought to a standstill, energy consumption decreases appreciably.
In the last general strike held in Spain, on November 14, 2012, total national electricity demand was reduced by around 11% over the course of the day.
However, the comparison with that date is not entirely equivalent, because since then electricity consumption in Spain has fallen for reasons such as improvements in energy efficiency or the rise of self-consumption, among other factors.