A Cross-Domain Approach to Analyzing the Short-Run Impact of COVID-19 on the US Electricity Sector

Abstract

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has rapidly spread around the globe in 2020, with the US becoming the epicenter of COVID-19 cases since late March. As the US begins to gradually resume economic activity, it is imperative for policymakers and power system operators to take a scientific approach to understanding and predicting the impact on the electricity sector. Here, we release a first-of-its-kind cross-domain open-access data hub, integrating data from across all existing US wholesale electricity markets with COVID-19 case, weather, mobile device location, and satellite imaging data. Leveraging cross-domain insights from public health and mobility data, we rigorously uncover a significant reduction in electricity consumption that is strongly correlated with the number of COVID-19 cases, degree of social distancing, and level of commercial activity.

Impacts of COVID-19 on energy demand and consumption: Challenges, lessons and emerging opportunities

“…Mastropietro et al [5] overviewed urgent global measures on energy consumer protection during the pandemic. There are more studies focusing on problems in specific countries or regions, such as the analysis of the short-term impacts on the United States electricity sector [11] , the review of government innervations in Africa [12] , the review of solar energy pathway in Malaysia [13] , the impact analysis for power sector operation in Indian [14] , the impact overview analysis of impacts on energy grid dynamics in Europe [7] , the overview of impacts on electricity and oil demand in China [15] , and the impacts of containment measures on European electricity consumption [16] . The aforementioned studies contributed to the understanding of the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic from different views.…”

Electricity Consumption of Singaporean Households Reveals Proactive Citizen Response to COVID-19 Progression

“…Therefore, the overall national demand reduces as the commercial and industrial activities ramp down during the pandemic [29]. Similar declines in the overall demand were observed in other countries as well [17,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26].…”

“…By determining the time spent by people at their homes and outside (e.g., in workplaces, shops, etc.) and analyzing how these behaviors change over time, recent studies [4,5,[15][16][17][18] have attempted to discern the social response and design targeted interventions. However, this approach suffers from limitations as well: (i) contact-tracing apps may not be used by many phone users, especially at the early stages of the pandemic; (ii) individuals could own more than one mobile phone, or multiple individuals may share a phone; (iii) demographic differences in phone usage exist, with groups such as children and the elderly potentially under-represented.…”

“…It should be noted that we are not the first to study how electricity consumption has been affected by the pandemic. A recent study by Ruan et al [17] has similarly examined the correlations between COVID-19 progression and the electricity consumption in different cities across the United States. However, in contrast to our study, their analysis was performed using the aggregate demand which includes not only the residential sector, but also the commercial and industrial counterparts.…”

More Is Not Enough: A Deeper Understanding of the COVID-19 Impacts on Healthcare, Energy and Environment Is Crucial

“…COVID-19 challenged healthcare systems, changed population lifestyles, reshaped energy consumption and living environment in society, and further triggered a series of chain reactions in the healthcare–energy–environment system. Various observations and quick lessons were published, via the fast track, to highlight the local impact on a single region or single sector, e.g., the healthcare impact in Latin America [ 16 ] and India [ 17 ], the short-run impact on the electricity sector in the United States (US) [ 18 ], the energy grid dynamics in Europe [ 19 ], the impact on air quality in Brazil [ 20 ], and the assessment of the impact on the environment in China [ 21 ]. Although the aforementioned studies did not pay attention to broader situations, they did contribute to understanding the specific impacts of COVID-19, which lay the foundation for further systematic integration.…”