How COVID-19 lockdown has impacted demand curves of Croatia and surrounding countries

Abstract

Electrical energy is a specific commodity because it can’t be stored in significant quantities, so accurate day-ahead forecasting of total consumption plays a crucial role in stable operation of the whole power system. In order to maintain the adequacy, power generation and electricity consumption have to be constantly in a balance.

Electricity demand curve is very sensitive and vulnerable to a lot of different factors that can be categorized in several main groups that include social, stochastic and weather dependent factors.

In condition of global pandemic caused by COVID 19, prediction of total consumption is even more challenging task. New restrictive rules, that completely changed behavior of consumers, their daily routine and habits, have been adopted in most of the European countries. Hence, this lockdown restrictive measures affected the volume of electricity consumption and the shape of demand curves as well.

This paper analyzes some of the cases with very variable electricity load, due to volatile households’ behavior, on cases of Croatia and countries in the region. Additionally, results are compared with the electricity load of Italy and Sweden whose economy and industry are well developed. Consumption of Sweden was interesting to observe because of its totally different approach of mitigating corona virus, without lockdown restrictions.