Covid-19 affects the personal lives of millions and led to an economic crisis. Changed behavioral patterns and a reduction of industrial activity result in a reduction in power demand, and thus Covid-19 impacts the power systems around the world. Bottom-up mapping of the effect of Covid-19 on the energy demand is challenging, if not impossible. In order to analyze the impact of the pandemic on power demand, we instead propose a simplified approach based on an econometric analysis that quantifies the country-wide load reduction of Covid-19, using the number of active cases as well as the specific lockdown period as proxies. The time span covered is from 1 January 2016 to 31 August 2020. This long time span allows us to investigate the effect of Covid-19 on the power demand. We find that in Germany (DE) and Great Britain (GB) the power demand is reduced by about 1–1.7 MW per case, while in France the demand increased by 1 MW per case during times outside of the lockdown. On the other hand, in France the lockdown itself has a much higher load reduction effect in France than in GB and DE. Based on the elasticity of power demand regarding Covid-19 cases, we calculate the impact of Covid-19 on the power prices through reduced loads. We find that Covid-19 reduced power prices by 3 to 6 EUR per MWh. The effect of Covid-19 on carbon emissions in the power sector is likely to be small. In Germany, the country with the highest absolute level, emissions in the power sector were reduced by approximately 2% (4 Mio. t CO2).

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The integration of different stakeholders’ perspectives when planning large-scale infrastructure projects such as power transmission lines is becoming increasingly important in the public debate. Partly conflicting interests of stakeholders should be taken into account in order to allow for best possible routing of new lines. Particularly when transmission lines which are bridging large distances are considered, externalities within this complex setting include social, ecological, economical and technical dimensions. An optimal routing of lines may help address different issues, such as public resistance. Models for the investigation of these large-area impacts for optimal route formation often only cover small regions or lack the georeferenced data necessary to quantify different criteria. We develop an open-source approach which allows for transparent and replicable route determination, tracing, and assessment covering the whole of Europe. Therefore, we provide several friction layers with high spatial resolution. Each layer represents a criterion affecting the routing of a power line. Together with the start and end point of a construction project, this allows for creating accumulated cost rasters for various relationships between the weightings of the perspectives which are relevant during line infrastructure routing processes. The present work explains the underlying methods of data collection, processing, and algorithms of data preparation, route generation, and assessment. Subsequently, this approach is verified with two case studies of HVDC transmission lines which are currently in the planning stages. All processed datasets and applied scripts described in this paper are open-access and made publicly available. Hence, this should support the current project routing debate by providing more transparency and by improving stakeholder involvement.

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