Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic at secondary power distribution

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused problems all around the world. To control the spread of the virus, some governments have imposed restrictions on the mobility of their citizens. Specifically, in Spain, from the months of March to May, lockdown was imposed. The effect of these actions is reflected not only on epidemiological data, but also on the behavior of the population, and therefore, some of their sectors. One of these sectors is the energy consumption. In this sense, this paper studies the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on energy consumption using the data from the Smart Meters of the secondary distribution network at low-voltage. This approach has de advantage that is not only able to obtain the impact at aggregated level but is also able to obtain the impact on smaller groups at customer level. The results show an increase in energy consumption on residential customers in contrast with a remarkable reduction on non-residential customers. In the case of non-residential customers, different consumption patterns have been found during the pandemic. These consumption patterns are highly correlated with the restrictions imposed to control de spread of the pandemic.