Abstract
Covid-19 affects the personal lives of millions and led to an economic crisis. Changed behavioral patterns and a reduction of industrial activity result in a reduction in power demand, and thus Covid-19 impacts the power systems around the world. Bottom-up mapping of the effect of Covid-19 on the energy demand is challenging, if not impossible. In order to analyze the impact of the pandemic on power demand, we instead propose a simplified approach based on an econometric analysis that quantifies the country-wide load reduction of Covid-19, using the number of active cases as well as the specific lockdown period as proxies. The time span covered is from 1 January 2016 to 31 August 2020. This long time span allows us to investigate the effect of Covid-19 on the power demand. We find that in Germany (DE) and Great Britain (GB) the power demand is reduced by about 1–1.7 MW per case, while in France the demand increased by 1 MW per case during times outside of the lockdown. On the other hand, in France the lockdown itself has a much higher load reduction effect in France than in GB and DE. Based on the elasticity of power demand regarding Covid-19 cases, we calculate the impact of Covid-19 on the power prices through reduced loads. We find that Covid-19 reduced power prices by 3 to 6 EUR per MWh. The effect of Covid-19 on carbon emissions in the power sector is likely to be small. In Germany, the country with the highest absolute level, emissions in the power sector were reduced by approximately 2% (4 Mio. t CO2).
Highlights
The Covid-19 pandemic continues to be a cause of great suffering and has led to the death of more than two million people around the world by the beginning of February2021
In response to Covid-19, many governments have severely restricted public life, which has led to a decline in economic activity, among other things
In order to analyze the effects of Covid-19 in detail, it is essential to understand the decline in demand
Summary
Power prices decreased in large European countries, like France, Great Britain, and Germany, the focus of this analysis To what extent this reduction was caused by Covid-19 is unclear as a higher power production from renewable energies (RES). Graf et al [14] highlight that the Covid-19 lockdown has reduced the net demand, while controllable generation units had to react to this demand shock In their analysis, they focus on the Italian electricity market with decreasing day-ahead prices and increasing costs for re-dispatch measurements. We compare the actual and the counter-factual price pattern, by estimating the price reductions due to Covid-19-related demand reductions, and discuss effects for three countries: Germany, France, and Great Britain
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