The impact of different COVID-19 containment measures on electricity consumption in Europe

Alireza Bahmanyar; Abouzar Estebsari; Damien Ernst

doi:10.1016/j.erss.2020.101683

The impact of different COVID-19 containment measures on electricity consumption in Europe

Energy Res Soc Sci. 2020 Oct:68:101683. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2020.101683. Epub 2020 Jul 3.

Authors

Alireza Bahmanyar¹, Abouzar Estebsari², Damien Ernst¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium.
² School of the Built Environment and Architecture, London South Bank University, London, United Kingdom.

Abstract

As of March 13, 2020, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) considered Europe as the centre of the global COVID-19 outbreak. All countries within Europe had a confirmed case of COVID-19 by March 17. In response to the pandemic, different European countries took different approaches. This paper compares the impact of different containment measures taken by European countries in response to COVID-19 on their electricity consumption profiles. The comparisons are made for Spain, Italy, Belgium and the UK as countries with severe restrictions, and for the Netherlands and Sweden as countries with less restrictive measures. The results show that the consumption profiles reflect the difference in peoples' activities in different countries using various measures.

Keywords: COVID_19; Consumer behaviour; Coronavirus; European power systems.