The use of electricity in the Netherlands fell 5.2 percent in June of this year in comparison with June of 2008. The manager of the national energy grid, Tennet, reports that this is the largest decrease since the start of the worldwide financial crisis.

As in most other countries, the consumption of electricity had grown steadily in the Netherlands since 1945, reaching a peak in September of 2008. Since February of this year there has been a fall in electricity use each month in comparison with the same month a year earlier.

The decline is for the most part due to the drop in industrial production in the Netherlands, which fell by 14 percent in the first quarter of 2009.

(flickr.com/Sir Digby Chicken Caesar)