European electricity demand declines by 7%

By Sibel Morrow

ANKARA (AA) - While countries across Europe have significantly curbed public life in a bid to fight against coronavirus pandemic, European countries have seen electricity demand fall 2-7% week-on-week with the U.K least impacted so far, according to an electricity analyst at climate thinktank Ember.

“These are very significant falls in the context of electricity demand, where temperature-adjusted changes are normally small,'' said Dave Jones in a recent analysis.

Jones said Italy, Spain and possibly France have been having double the influence of any other country and 20% in Italy in the last 2 weeks.

“Last Friday, the Italian utility A2A said that coronavirus was responsible for a 15% fall in electricity demand across the whole of Italy and that the fall was as much as 25% in northern regions of Italy,” Jones said.

Germany's demand for electricity dropped by Friday to 6%, Jones said, as more factories closed down the week while Poland had daily falls of around 5% from Monday to Friday.