 Energy demand during a pandemic: Evidence from Ghana and RwandaJustice T. Mensah, Aimable Nsabimana, James Dzansi and Alexandre Nshunguyinka Energy Economics, 2025, vol. 141, issue C Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruptions to economies around the world. In response to this, some developing countries offered reliefs such as electricity subsidies while others did not. The main goal of this study is to identify the effects of the COVID pandemic on electricity consumption patterns among households and firms in Sub-Saharan Africa using unique administrative data on billing records from Ghana and Rwanda. Interestingly, the two countries offered differing policy responses to the pandemic. Based on Difference in Difference approach, the paper indicates that the pandemic led to higher consumption of electricity in both countries, albeit with variations across countries and sectors. While residential consumption soared, consumption of non-residential customers such as hotels and industries declined during the period. Specifically, electricity subsidies in Ghana explain the sharp increase in residential consumption during the pandemic. These findings highlight the potential effects of pandemic relief measures on household welfare. Keywords: COVID-19; Electricity; Subsidies; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:141:y:2025:i:c:s0140988324007746 DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2024.108065 Access Statistics for this article Energy Economics is currently edited by R. S. J. Tol, Beng Ang, Lance Bachmeier, Perry Sadorsky, Ugur Soytas and J. P. Weyant More articles in Energy Economics from Elsevier |
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