This issue of the NEEA report presents electricity-related data updated to the end of March 2021, data on gas consumption to the end of February, and petroleum product consumption to the end of January.

Key findings:

• Total energy consumption was the lowest it has been in six years in South Australia, five years for the NEM as a whole and four years in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.
• Total electricity consumption in 2019-20 however, was slightly higher than in 2018-19 in Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania. There was a slight increase in NSW.
• There is no evidence that in NEM states that economic lock-down and associated economic recession caused a significant drop in total electricity consumption. Excluding Victoria where similar data is not yet available.
• Commentators who continue to assert that Australia has experienced a fall in electricity consumption, are simply transferring the experience of Europe and the USA, giving no consideration to the actual evidence of what has happened in Australia.