The Immediate Impacts of COVID-19 on European Electricity Systems: A First Assessment and Lessons Learned

Ettore Bompard, Carmelo Mosca, Pietro Colella, Georgios Antonopoulos, Gianluca Fulli, Marcelo Masera, Marta Poncela-Blanco and Silvia Vitiello
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Ettore Bompard: Department of Energy, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy
Carmelo Mosca: Department of Energy, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy
Pietro Colella: Department of Energy, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy
Georgios Antonopoulos: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), 1755 Petten, The Netherlands
Gianluca Fulli: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), 21027 Ispra, Italy
Marcelo Masera: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), 1755 Petten, The Netherlands
Marta Poncela-Blanco: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), 21027 Ispra, Italy
Silvia Vitiello: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), 21027 Ispra, Italy

Energies, 2020, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-22

Abstract: The worldwide spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 forced most countries to intervene with policies and actions—including lockdowns, social-distancing and smart working measures—aimed at mitigating the health system and socio-economic disruption risks. The electricity sector was impacted as well, with performance largely reflecting the changes in the industrial and commercial sectors operations and in the social behavior patterns. The most immediate consequences concerned the power demand profiles, the generation mix composition and the electricity price trends. As a matter of fact, the electricity sectors experienced a foretaste of the future, with higher renewable energy penetration and concerns for security of supply. This paper presents a systemic approach toward assessing the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the power sector. This is aimed at supporting decision making—particularly for policy makers, regulators, and system operators—by quantifying shorter term effects and identifying longer term impacts of the pandemic waves on the power system. Various metrics are defined in different areas—system operation, security, and electricity markets—to quantify those impacts. The methodology is finally applied to the European power system to produce a comparative assessment of the effects of the lockdown in the European context.

Keywords: COVID-19; demand; electricity markets; renewables; pandemic; power system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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