As COVID-19 spreads worldwide, governments have been implementing a wide range of measures to contain it, from movement restrictions to economy-wide shutdowns. Understanding their impacts is essential to support better policies for countries still experiencing outbreaks or in case of emergence of subsequent pandemic waves. Here we show that the cumulative decline in electricity consumption within the five months following the stay-home orders ranges between 3-12% in the most affected EU countries and USA states, except Florida that shows no significant impact. Whereas Italy, France, Spain, California, Austria and New York have recovered baseline consumption by the end of July, Great Britain and Germany remain below baseline levels. We also show that the relationship between measures stringency and daily decline in electricity consumption is nonlinear. These results illustrate the severity of the crisis across countries and can support further research on the effect of specific measures.
The transformation of the electricity sector is a central element of the transition to a decarbonized economy. Conventional generators powered by fossil fuels have to be replaced by variable renewable energy (VRE) sources in combination with electricity storage and other options for providing temporal flexibility. We discuss the market dynamics of increasing VRE penetration and its integration in the electricity system. We describe the merit-order effect (the decline of wholesale electricity prices as VRE penetration increases) and the cannibalization effect (the decline of VRE value as its penetration increases). We further review the role of electricity storage and other flexibility options for integrating variable renewables and how storage can contribute to mitigating the two mentioned effects. We also use a stylized open-source model to provide some graphical intuition on these issues. While relatively high shares of VRE are achievable with moderate amounts of electricity storage, the role of long-duration storage increases as the VRE share approaches 100%.
As COVID-19 spreads worldwide, governments have been implementing a wide range of measures to contain it, from movement restrictions to economy-wide shutdowns. Understanding their impacts is essential to support better policies for countries still experiencing outbreaks or in case of emergence of second pandemic waves. Here we show that the cumulative decline in electricity consumption within the four months following the stay-home orders ranges between 4-13% in the most affected EU countries and USA states, except Florida that shows no significant impact. Whereas the studied USA states have recovered baseline levels, electricity consumption remains lower in the European countries. These results illustrate the severity of the crisis across countries and can support further research on the effect of specific measures, evolution of economic activity or relationship with other high-frequency indicators.
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