Abstract
This chapter investigates the effects of COVID-19 on electricity consumption in some countries, especially in Iran. The effect of COVID-19 in the electricity industry and the amount of electricity consumption in Iran and in the countries that have been most affected have been studied. A study of COVID-19's impact on the world shows a reduction of about 15% in electricity demand during the short term of the COVID-19 outbreak. This amount varies from country to country. Studies show that the countries under study have experienced a relative decline in electricity demand in the short term, but with the continued prevalence of COVID-19 and the removal of some restrictions, the state of electricity consumption has more or less returned to pre-COVID-19 levels. It is worth noting that at the time of writing this chapter, the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
TopIntroduction
Covid-19 pandemic is a pandemic of the SARS-COV-2 virus acute respiratory syndrome. The disease was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. On 11 March, the World Health Organization announced the outbreak of the disease. The disease has swept the world in a short time and is still affecting it months later(Abu-Rayash & Dincer, 2020). Measures taken by governments to combat Covid-19 have directly impacted individuals’ daily lives and most industrial and commercial manufacturing companies and their activities, and as a result, have severely affected the energy sector. The full range of consequences for the energy sector has not yet been revealed and is difficult to predict; however, it is clear that the demand for energy resources in the short term has declined worldwide. In this study, the Covid-19 pandemic’s effect on electricity consumption in Iran and the world is examined by providing relevant statistics. Also, the damage that Covid-19 has caused to the electricity industry in Iran is discussed, and finally, suggestions for elimination are discussed damages are provided(Agdas & Barooah, 2020).
A large number of studies have analyzed the impact of COVID-19 on electrical systems. These can be grouped into documents that i) describe variations in electricity demand, ii) develop methodologies or statistical analyzes that determine the impact of the pandemic on electricity markets, iii) analyze the medium and long-term impacts of COVID-19 on electricity markets, and iv) study the impact of the pandemic on industrial electricity consumption according to its economic category(Bahmanyar et al., 2020).
The first group of descriptive studies is found (Moreno et al., 2020), which analyzes the impact of the different health policies applied in Europe to contain COVID-19. They exemplify six countries whose adopted measures have a different depth. In this way, countries with more restrictive policies such as Spain and Italy show large decreases in their consumption on working days, while in countries with softer measures, such as Sweden’s case, it is observed that consumption has increased during the weekends. Likewise, Abu-Rayash & Dincer (2020) analyze changes in consumption variations in Ontario, distinguishing changes in demand patterns between pre-and post-pandemic periods.
Santiago et al. (2021) delve into the analysis of the Spanish case. For this, they analyze the decrease in demand, the decrease in CO2 emissions, and changes in prices, considering the Spanish system operator’s data. Besides, possible residential demand changes are analyzed, considering the variation in demand of a single private client located in Cordoba, corresponding to a four-person household. They also study how health centers have changed their consumption patterns due to the pandemic.
In line with the above, Snow et al. (2020) study the behavior of 17 households in Queensland, Australia. In this way, they identify that the increases in residential consumption are due to greater use of electronic devices and kitchen elements.
In the studies that develop methodologies to analyze the impacts of COVID-19 in the electricity markets, it can be found that in Norouzi et al. (2020), a neural network is proposed to study the elasticity of demand for electricity and oil according to the percentage of people infected by the pandemic. In Agdas & Barooah (2020), the pandemic’s effect on the electricity demand in the United States is studied. One of the main challenges is that the consumption time series mixes the pandemic’s effects with other effects such as climatic conditions. As a solution to this problem, it is proposed to apply regression models to separate the effect of climatic variables and thus isolate the effects of the pandemic. This methodology is applied to Regional Utilities that have all the clients’ information in their service area.
On the other hand, Ruan et al. (2020) propose an interdisciplinary analysis to analyze the pandemic’s real impacts in the United States. It has the Covid-19 Disease and Electricity Market Data Aggregation (COVID-EMDA) database containing information on electricity demand, health information, climate information, and mobility indices. Among others. With a backcasting methodology, the electricity demand is estimated in the absence of COVID-19. Thus, compared to this benchmark, the impact of the pandemic on electricity demand is quantified.
Key Terms in this Chapter
COVID-19 and Economics: The outbreak is a major destabilizing threat to the global economy. One estimate from an expert at Washington University in St. Louis gave a $300+ billion impact on the world’s supply chain that could last up to two years. Global stock markets fell on 24 February due to a significant rise in COVID-19 cases outside China. On 27 February, due to mounting worries about the COVID-19 outbreak, US stock indexes posted their sharpest falls since 2008, with the Dow falling 1,191 points (the largest one-day drop since the financial crisis of 2007–08) and all three major indexes ending the week down more than 10 per cent. On 28 February, Scope Ratings GmbH affirmed China’s sovereign credit rating but maintained a Negative Outlook. Stocks plunged again due to coronavirus fears, the largest fall being on 16 March.
Ethnocentric: Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal that cannot be shared: one’s gain is the other’s loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, individuals, economic and social groups, etc. The rivalry can be over attaining any exclusive goal, including recognition: (e.g., awards, goods, mates, status, prestige), leadership, market share, niches, scarce resources, or a territory.
Decision Analysis (DA): Is the discipline comprising the philosophy, methodology, and professional practice necessary to address important decisions formally. Decision analysis includes many procedures, methods, and tools for identifying, clearly representing, and formally assessing important aspects of a decision; for prescribing a recommended course of action by applying the maximum expected-utility axiom to a well-formed representation of the decision; and for translating the formal representation of a decision and its corresponding recommendation into insight for the decision-maker, and other corporate and non-corporate stakeholders.
COVID-19 and Environment: The worldwide disruption caused by the pandemic has resulted in numerous positive effects on the environment and climate. The global reduction in modern human activity, such as the considerable decline in planned travel, was coined andropause and has caused a large drop in air pollution and water pollution in many regions. In China, lockdowns and other measures resulted in a 25 percent reduction in carbon emissions and a 50 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides emissions, which one Earth systems scientist estimated may have saved at least 77,000 lives over two months. Other positive effects on the environment include governance-system-controlled investments towards a sustainable energy transition and other goals related to environmental protection, such as the European Union’s seven-year €1 trillion budget proposal and €750 billion recovery plan “Next Generation EU” which seeks to reserve 25% of EU spending for climate-friendly expenditure. However, the pandemic has also covered illegal activities such as deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and increased poaching in Africa. The hindering of environmental diplomacy efforts combined with late capitalism also created economic fallout that some predict will slow investment in green energy technologies.
Family-Centricity: In management, strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by an organization’s managers on behalf of stakeholders, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization operates. Strategic management provides overall direction to an enterprise and involves specifying the organization’s objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve those objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans. Academics and practicing managers have developed numerous models and frameworks to assist in strategic decision-making in complex environments and competitive dynamics. Strategic management is not static; the models often include a feedback loop to monitor execution and inform the next planning round.
COVID-19 and Lifestyle: The pandemic has resulted in many people adapting to massive changes in life, from increased internet commerce to the job market. Social distancing has caused increased sales from large e-commerce companies such as Amazon, Alibaba, and Coupang. Online retailers in the US posted 791.70 billion dollars in sales in 2020, increasing 32.4% from 598.02 billion dollars from the year before.[747] The trend of home delivery orders has increased due to the pandemic, with indoor dining restaurants shutting down due to lockdown orders or low sales. Hackers and cybercriminals/scammers have started targeting people due to the massive changes, with some pretending to be part of the CDC and others using different phishing schemes. Education worldwide has increasingly shifted from physical attendance to video conferencing apps such as Zoom as lockdown measures have resulted in schools being forced to shut down. Due to the pandemic, mass layoffs have occurred in the airline, travel, hospitality, and some other industries. (There were no signs of permanent recovery as of May 2021).
COVID-19: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. Most people who fall sick with COVID-19 will experience mild to moderate symptoms and recover without special treatment. The virus that causes COVID-19 is mainly transmitted through droplets generated when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or exhales. These droplets are too heavy to hang in the air and quickly fall on floors or surfaces. You can be infected by breathing in the virus if you are within proximity of someone who has COVID-19 or by touching a contaminated surface and then your eyes, nose, or mouth.
Multiple-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM): Multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is a sub-discipline of operations research that explicitly evaluates multiple conflicting criteria in decision making (both in daily life and in settings such as business, government, and medicine). Conflicting criteria are typical in evaluating options: cost or price is usually one of the main criteria, and some measure of quality is typically another criterion, easily in conflict with the cost. In purchasing a car, cost, comfort, safety, and fuel economy maybe some of the main criteria we consider – unusually, the cheapest car is the most comfortable and the safest one. In portfolio management, managers are interested in getting high returns while simultaneously reducing risks; however, the stocks that can bring high returns typically carry a high risk of losing money. In a service industry, customer satisfaction and the cost of providing service are fundamental conflicting criteria.