2009 nonresidential electricity usage still lower

Decline may be slowing

Wendy Natt, Jun 29, 09.

A recent Houston Economic Indicators email update from Skip Kasdorf at the Greater Houston Partnership on nonresidential electricity sales/usage in the Houston region, according to data from CenterPoint Energy:

Nonresidential electricity usage is a rough proxy for industrial production.

In the CenterPoint service area, unit sales of electricity to nonresidential users in May were 5.6 percent less than in May ’08, the firm reported today.

For the first five months of ’09, sales were 7.0 percent below the same period last year, so May represents a modest deceleration in the rate of decline.

Nearly all of the reduction involved sales to large industrial customers.

Nonresidential sales in April 2009 were down 12.9 percent lower than April 2008, according to an earlier report from GHP, which also noted that a more accurate measure of usage is the running 12-month total.

View the full list of GHP’s Houston Economic Indicators for June 26, 2009.