June 3, 2020

COVID-19 cuts Europe’s annual consumption by ≈124 TWh

Eylert Ellefsen

Archived blog post. This blog post has been transferred from our previous blogging platform. Links and images may not work as intended.

European power demand has recovered faster than anticipated as lockdowns have been eased across Europe, but EQ’s latest forecast shows annual demand in 16 western European countries will still drop to around 3% below normal levels.

Consumption reduction curves, average Western Europe (%) - wk 22 vs wk17 - EQ estimates

EQ has this week updated its European demand recovery forecast from that made in week 17. The key takeaways are:

Weather adjusted demand recovery between weeks 17-22 has been faster than forecast (base scenario) but slowed downlast week (wk 22).
Consumption by week 22 is very close to EQ’s forecasted profile from week 17.
Our base scenario assumes the recovery profile for the rest of the year will match that issued in wk 17, which amounts to a 3.1 % annual reduction inpower demand for the 16 countries surveyed.

Consumption reduction curves by areas (%) – wk 22 – EQ estimate

All in all, this year’s demand slump is less pronounced than that caused by the financial crisis in 2009, when European demand fell around 6%.

Forecast annual demand changes - EQ estimate wk 22

EQ continually updates demand forecats for all of Europe, in addition to forecating all power fundamentals.

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