The IEA noted that global renewable energy generation is up 3 during the pandemic, one of few bright spots during the crisis.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has released a report into the impacts of Covid-19 on global energy demand and carbon dioxide emissions, revealing that both metrics are falling at an unprecedented rate.
The report, ‘Global Energy Review 2020’, was published today, and draws from 100 days of research into the spread of Covid-19 and the responses of countries around the world, to draw ominous conclusions for the energy industry. Of greatest concern will be the precipitous decline in global energy demand, with countries in full lockdown seeing a 25% decline in energy demand per week. This is in stark contrast to a decline of just 3.8% in the first quarter of the year, as the lockdown enforced in a number of countries, leading to vacant workspaces and empty industrial buildings, has slashed the world’s need for electricity.
IEA executive director Fatih Birol noted that “this is a big shock, when we look at the numbers in our global energy system.”
“We have never seen such a big decline,” he continued, “and this is happening in almost all the countries around the world, especially in electricity generation, but also for the industrial sector. [Demand for] all the fuels are going down.”
He noted that the latest drop in global energy demand is more than seven times larger than the previous significant decline, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and went on to compare the world’s current energy demand to that of a weekend, suggesting that weekly electricity demand is now akin to a week of Sundays.
The prevalence of lockdowns and quarantine measures across the world are key drivers of this trend; while a decline in industrial and commercial energy demand is somewhat offset by an increase in residential energy demand, the shift towards working and studying from home has led to a net fall in energy demand.
“The share of global energy use that was affected by mandatory lockdowns jumped from 5% to more than half of global energy markets,” said Laura Cozzi, chief energy modeler at the IEA and one of the report’s authors. “Today, as we speak, we are right in the middle of the storm, with 50% of global energy use being affected by mandatory lockdowns.
