Abstract
The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted many sectors including the electricity sector. The restrictions such as lockdowns, remote-working, and -schooling significantly altered the consumers' behaviors and demand structure especially due to a large number of people working at home. Accurate demand forecasts and detailed production plans are crucial for cost-efficient generation and transmission of electricity. In this research, the restrictions and their corresponding timing are classified and mapped with the Turkish electricity demand data to analyze the impact of the restrictions on total demand using a multiple linear regression model. In addition, the model is utilized to forecast the electricity demand in pandemic conditions and to analyze how different types of restrictions impact the total electricity demand. It is found that among three levels of COVID-19 restrictions, age-specific restrictions and the complete lockdown have different effects on the electricity demand on weekends and weekdays. In general, new scheduling approaches for daily and weekly loads are required to avoid supply-demand mismatches as COVID-19 significantly changed the consumer behavior, which appears as altered daily and weekly load profiles of the country. Long-term policy implications for the energy transition and lessons learned from the COVID-19 experience are also discussed.
Highlights
The impact of COVID-19 on the economy, industry, health, education, and other critical sectors are obvious and the damage will need to be recalculated when the pandemic period is over
The problem of forecasting hourly electricity demand under COVID-19 restrictions is analyzed using a sinusoidal regression model extended with a binary covariate for each type of restriction
The regression model learns the effect of restrictions on the electricity demand and forecast errors fluctuate around 6.07% for the rest of the COVID-19 restrictions
Summary
The impact of COVID-19 on the economy, industry, health, education, and other critical sectors are obvious and the damage will need to be recalculated when the pandemic period is over. The demand for electric energy is highly impacted as a result of restrictions and the changing habits of the users. Electricity is a commodity that is delivered to end-users passing through planning, generation, and transmission steps. The demand still needs to be forecasted under the presence of COVID-19 restrictions as the electricity is still generated to meet the demand. It has been quite some time since the pandemic period started and the post-pandemic consumption pattern is still unknown. Electricity forecasting models, considering altered consumption behaviors of both household and industrial consumers, are needed to estimate demand accurately
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
