Plan to shut down power plants blocked

Lockdown Electricity Demand Trends reveal later mornings, weaker afternoons, and delayed peaks as WFH, streaming, and video conferencing reshape energy demand curves, grid forecasting, and residential electricity usage across Europe, New York, Tokyo, and Singapore.

Key Points

Shifts in power use during lockdowns: later ramps, weaker afternoons, and higher, delayed evening peaks.

✅ Morning ramp starts later; midday demand dips

✅ Evening peak shifts 1-2 hours; higher late-night usage

✅ WFH and streaming raise residential load; industrial demand falls

Life in lockdown means getting up late, staying up till midnight and slacking off in the afternoons.

That’s what power market data in Europe show in the places where restrictions on activity have led to a widespread shift in daily routines of hundreds of millions of people.

It’s a similar story wherever lockdowns bite. In New York City electricity use has fallen as much as 18% from normal times at 8am. Tokyo and three nearby prefectures had a 5% drop in power use during weekdays after Japan declared a state of emergency on April 7, according to Tesla Asia Pacific, an energy forecaster.

Italy’s experience shows the trend most clearly since the curbs started there on March 5, before any other European country. Data from the grid operator Terna SpA gives a taste of what other places are also now starting to report, with global daily demand dips observed in many markets as well.

1. People are sleeping later

With no commute to the office people can sleep longer. Normally, electricity demand began to pick up between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. Now in Germany, it’s clear coffee machines don’t go on until between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., said Simon Rathjen, founder of the trading company MFT Energy A/S.

Germany, France and Italy -- which between them make up almost two thirds of the euro-zone economy -- all have furlough measures that allow workers to receive a salary while temporarily suspended from their jobs. The U.K. also has a support package. Many of these workers will be getting up later.

"Now I have quite a relaxed start to the morning,” said David Freeman, an analyst in financial services from London. "I don’t get up until about half an hour before I need to start work.”

2. Less productive afternoons

There is a deeper dip in electricity use in the afternoons. Previously, power use rose between 2pm and 5pm. Now it dips as people head out for a walk or some air, according to UK demand data from National Grid Plc

It’s "as though we are living through a month of Sundays”, said Iain Staffell, senior lecturer in sustainable energy at Imperial College London.

3. Evenings in

From 6pm electricity use begins to rise steeply as people finish work and start chores. Restrictions like work and home schooling that prevent much daytime TV watching lifts in the early evening. This following chart for Germany shows the evening peak for power use coming during later hours.

The evening is when electricity use is highest, with most people confined to their homes. Netflix Inc reported a record 15.8 million paid subscribers – almost double the figure forecast by Wall Street analysts. Video-streaming services like Netflix and YouTube have found a captive audience. The new Disney+ service surpassed 50 million subscribers in just five months, a faster pace than predicted.

Internet traffic is skyrocketing, with a surge in bandwidth-intensive applications like streaming services and Zoom. This may mean that monthly broadband consumption of as much as 600 gigabytes, about 35% higher than before, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

In Singapore, electricity use has dropped off significantly since the country’s "circuit-breaker” efforts to keep people at home began April 7. Electricity use has fallen and stayed low during the day. But late at night is a different story, as power demand fell sharply immediately after the lockdown began, it has steadily crept back in the past two weeks, perhaps a sign that Tiger King and The Last Dance have been finding late-night fans in the city state.

In Ottawa, COVID-19 closures made it seem as if the city had fallen off the electricity grid, according to local reports.

4. Staying up late

We’re going to bed later too. Demand doesn’t start to drop off until 10pm to 12am, at least an hour later than before.

"My children are definitely going to bed later,” said Liz Stevens, a teaching assistant from London. "Our whole routine is out the window.”

It’s challenging for those that need to predict behaviour – power grids and electricity traders. Forecasting is based on historical data, and there isn’t anything to go into the models gauging use now.

The closest we can get is looking at big events like football World Championships when people are all sitting down at the same time, according to Rathjen at MFT.

"Forecasting demand right now is very tricky,” said Chris Kimmett, director of power grids at Reactive Technologies Ltd. "A global pandemic is uncharted territory."

What normal looks like when the crisis passes is also an open question. Different countries are set to unravel their measures in their own ways, and global power demand has already surged above pre-pandemic levels in some analyses, with Germany and Austria loosening restrictions first and Italy remaining under tight control. Some changes may be permanent, with both workers and employers becoming more comfortable with working from home.

5. Different sectors consume more

In China, which is further along recovering from the pandemic than Europe or the US, the sharp contraction in overall power output masks a shift in daily routines.

Eating habits have changed. Restaurants are expanding delivery and even offering grocery services as the preference for dining at home persists. Household electricity consumption in China probably increased from activities such as cooking and heating, according to IHS Markit, which said that residential demand rose by 2.4% in the first two months as people stayed in.

The increase in technology use also drove China’s power demand from the telecom and web-service sectors to rise by 27%, the consultancy said.

Overall, China power demand in the first quarter of the year fell 6.5% from the same period in 2019 to 1.57 trillion kilowatt-hours, China’s National Energy Administration said last week. Industry uses about 70% of the country’s electricity, while the commercial sector and households account for 14% each. – Bloomberg

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Energy Policy News

Grid Modernization drives utilities to integrate DER, AMI, and battery storage while balancing reliability, safety, and affordability; regulators pursue cost-benefit analyses, new rate design, and policy actions to guide investment and protect customer-owned resources.

Key Points

Upgrading the grid to manage DER with digital tools, while maintaining reliability, safety, and customer affordability.

✅ Cost-benefit analyses guide prudent grid investments

✅ AMI and storage deployments enable DER visibility and control

✅ Rate design reforms support customer-owned resources

Utilities’ pursuit of a modern grid, including the digital grid concept, to maintain the reliability and safety pillars of electricity delivery has raised a lot of questions about the third pillar — affordability.

Utilities are seeing rising penetrations of emerging technologies, highlighted in recent grid edge trends reports, like distributed solar, behind-the-meter battery storage, and electric vehicles. These new distributed energy resources (DER) do not eliminate utilities' need to keep distribution systems safe and reliable.

But the need for modern tools to manage DER imposes costs on utilities, prompting calls to invest in smarter infrastructure even as some regulators, lawmakers and policymakers are concerned those costs could drive up electricity rates.

The result is an increasing number of legislative and regulatory grid modernization actions aimed at identifying what is necessary to serve the coming power sector transformation and address climate change risks across the grid.

The rise of grid modernization

Grid modernization, which is supported by both conservatives and distributed energy resources advocates, got a lot of attention last year. According to the 2017 review of grid modernization policy by the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center (NCCETC), 288 grid modernization policy actions were proposed, pending or enacted in 39 states.

These numbers from NCCETC's first annual review of policy activity set a benchmark against which future years' activity can be measured.

The most common type of state actions, by far, were those that focused on the deployment of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and battery energy storage. Those are two of the 2017 trends identified in NCCETC’s 50 States of Grid Modernization report. But deployment of those technologies, while foundational to an updated grid, only begins to prepare distribution systems for the coming power sector transformation.

Bigger advances, including the newest energy system management tools, are being held back by 2017’s other policy actions requiring more deliberation and fact-finding, even as grid vulnerability report cards underscore the risks that modernization seeks to mitigate.

Utilities’ proposals to more fully prepare their grids to deliver 21st century technologies are being met with questions about completeness and cost.

Utilities are being asked to address these questions in comprehensive, public utility commission-led cost-benefit analyses and studies. This is also one of NCCETC’s top 2017 policy action trends for grid modernization. The outcome to date appears to be an increased, but still incomplete, understanding of what is needed to build a 21st century grid.

Among the top objectives of those driving the policy actions are resolving questions about private sector participation in grid modernizaton buildouts and developing new rate designs to protect and support customer-owned distributed energy resources. Actions on those topics are also on NCCETC’s list of 2017 policy trends.

Altogether, the trend list is dominated by actions that do not lead to completion of grid modernization but to more work on it.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Grid Technologies News

Hydro-Quebec back-billing arises from analogue meter errors and estimated consumption, leading to arrears for electricity usage; disputes over access, payment plans, and potential power diversion reviews can impact cottage owners near Gatineau.

Key Points

Hydro-Quebec back-billing recovers underbilled electricity from analogue meter errors or prolonged estimated use.

✅ Triggered by inaccurate analogue meters or missed readings

✅ Based on actual usage versus prior estimated consumption

✅ Payment plans may spread arrears; theft checks may adjust

A relaxing lakefront cottage has become a powerful source of stress for an Ottawa woman who Hydro-Quebec is charging $5,300 to cover what it says are years of undercharging for electricity usage.

The utility said an old analogue power meter is to blame for years of inaccurate electricity bills for the summer getaway near Gatineau, Que.

Separate from individual billing issues, Hydro-Quebec has also reported pandemic-related losses earlier this year.

Owner Jan Hodgins does not think she should be held responsible for the mistake, nor does she understand how her usage could have surged over the years.

“I’m very hydro conscious, because I was raised that way. When you left a room, you always turned the light out,” she told CTV Montreal on Wednesday, relating her shock after receiving some hefty bills from Hydro-Quebec on Sept. 22.

Hodgins said she mainly uses the cottage on weekends, does not heat the place when she is not there, and does not use a washer or dryer, to keep her energy footprint as small as possible. She’s owned the cottage for 14 years, during which she says her monthly bill has hovered around $40.

Hydro-Quebec said it has not had an accurate reading of her usage for several years, relying instead on consumption estimates to determine what she pays. The company recently reviewed her energy consumption back to 2014, and found their estimates were not accurate.

“In the past, she was consuming about 10 to 15 kilowatt hours per day. This summer she was more around 40 kilowatt hours per day,” Marc-Antoine Pouliot with Hydro-Quebec told CTV Ottawa.

Hodgins said that means her regular bill will now be more than twice the $200 her neighbours are paying for hydro each month, even with peak hydro rates in place.

Hydro-Quebec said it will correct the bill if its technicians discover that someone is illegally diverting power nearby.

Hodgins said it’s not her fault that technicians did not check her meter in person, and chose to rely on inaccurate estimates. Pouliot argues that reaching her cottage was too difficult.

“There was too much snow. There were conditions during the winter disconnection ban period, and the consequence was that people, our workers, were not able to reach the meter,” he said.

Hydro-Quebec said it is willing to stretch out the debt into monthly payments over a year, which Hodgins said amount to $440 per month on top of her regular bill.

Utilities also caution customers about scammers threatening shutoffs during billing disputes.

“I’m on a fixed income. I don’t have that kind of money. I’m completely distraught,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Utility Operations News

Franco-German Nuclear Power Divide shapes EU energy policy, electricity market reform, and decarbonization strategies, as Paris backs reactors and state subsidies while Berlin prioritizes renewables, hydrogen, and energy security after Russian gas shocks.

Key Points

A policy rift over nuclear shaping EU market reform, subsidies, and the balance between reactors and renewables.

✅ Nuclear in EU targets vs. renewables-first strategy

✅ Market design disputes over long-term power prices

✅ Energy security after Russian gas; hydrogen definitions

Near the French village of Fessenheim, facing Germany across the Rhine, a nuclear power station stands dormant. The German protesters that once demanded the site’s closure have decamped, in a sign of Europe's nuclear decline, and the last watts were produced three years ago. 

But disagreements over how the plant from 1977 should be repurposed persist, speaking to a much deeper divide over nuclear power, which Eon chief's warning to Germany underscored, between the two countries on either side of the river’s banks.

German officials have disputed a proposal to turn it into a centre to treat metals exposed to low levels of radioactivity, Fessenheim’s mayor Claude Brender says. “They are not on board with anything that might in some way make the nuclear industry more acceptable,” he adds.

France and Germany’s split over nuclear power is a tale of diverging mindsets fashioned over decades, including since the Chernobyl disaster in USSR-era Ukraine. But it has now become a major faultline in a touchy relationship between Europe’s two biggest economies.

Their stand-off over how to treat nuclear in a series of EU reforms has consequences for how Europe plans to advance towards cleaner energy. It will also affect how the bloc secures power supplies as the region weans itself off Russian gas, even though nuclear would do little for the gas issue, and how it provides its industry with affordable energy to compete with the US and China. 

“There can be squabbles between partners. But we’re not in a retirement home today squabbling over trivial matters. Europe is in a serious situation,” says Eric-André Martin, a specialist in Franco-German relations at French think-tank IFRI. 

France, which produces two-thirds of its power from nuclear plants and has plans for more reactors, is fighting for the low-carbon technology to be factored into its targets for reducing emissions and for leeway to use state subsidies to fund the sector.

For Germany, which closed its last nuclear plants this year and, having turned its back on nuclear, has been particularly shaken by its former reliance on Russian gas, there’s concern that a nuclear drive will detract from renewable energy advances.

But there is also an economic subtext in a region still reeling from an energy crisis last year, reviving arguments for a needed nuclear option for climate in Germany, when prices spiked and laid bare how vulnerable households and manufacturers could become.

Berlin is wary that Paris would benefit more than its neighbours if it ends up being able to guarantee low power prices from its large nuclear output as a result of new EU rules on electricity markets, amid talk of a possible U-turn on the phaseout, people close to talks between the two countries say.

Ministers on both sides have acknowledged there is a problem. “The conflict is painful. It’s painful for the two governments as well as for our [EU] partners,” Sven Giegold, state secretary at the German economy and climate action ministry, where debates about whether a nuclear resurgence is possible persist, tells the Financial Times. 

Agnès Pannier-Runacher, France’s energy minister, says she wants to “get out of the realm of the emotional and move past the considerable misunderstandings that have accumulated in this discussion”.

In a joint appearance in Hamburg last week, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and French president Emmanuel Macron made encouraging noises over their ability to break the latest deadlock: a disagreement over the design of the EU’s electricity market. Ministers had been due to agree a plan in June but will now meet on October 17 to discuss the reform, aimed at stabilising long-term prices.

But the French and German impasse on nuclear has already slowed down debates on key EU policies such as rules on renewable energy and how hydrogen should be produced. Smaller member states are becoming impatient. The delay on the market design is “a big Franco-German show of incompetence again”, says an energy ministry official from another EU country who requested anonymity. 

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Power Generation News

BEST vigilance raid on Wadala electricity theft uncovered a Mumbai power theft racket in Antop Hill and Sangam Nagar, with operators, illegal connections, sub-stations, meter cabins, FIRs, and Rs 72 lakh losses flagged by BEST.

Key Points

A BEST operation that nabbed operators stealing power via illegal connections in Wadala, exposing a Rs 72 lakh loss.

✅ 35 suspects booked; key operator identified as David Anthony.

✅ Illegal taps from sub-stations and meter cabins in shanties.

✅ BEST filed FIRs; Session court granted bail to accused.

In a raid conducted at Antop Hill in Wadala on Saturday, a total of 35 people were nabbed by the vigilance department for stealing electricity to the tune of Rs 72 lakh, in a case similar to a Montreal power-theft ring bust covered internationally.

It was the second such raid conducted in the past one week, where operators have been nabbed.The cash-strapped BEST is now tightening it's grasp on `operators' who steal electricity from BEST sources and provide it to their own customers on a meagre monthly rent, even as Ontario utilities warn about scams affecting customers elsewhere.

After receiving a tip-off about the theft of electricity in the Sangam Nagar area of Wadala, about 90 personnel of the BEST conducted a raid. After visiting the spots, it was found that illegal connections were made from the sub-station and other electricity boxes of the BEST in the area, underscoring how fragile networks can be amid disruptions such as major outages in London that affected thousands.

According to BEST officials, the residents from the area would come up to the accused, identified as David Anthony, and would pay a fixed amount at the end of every month for unlimited supply of power, a dynamic reminiscent of shutoff-threat scams flagged by Manitoba Hydro, though the circumstances differ. Anthony would with draw power directly from meter cabins and electricity boxes in the area. The wires he connected to these were in turn connected to households who made the arrangement with him. An official from BEST also explained that as soon they reach a location to conduct raids and vehicles of BEST officials are spotted by residents, most of the connections are cut off, which makes it difficult for them to prove the theft case However, on Saturday, BEST officials managed to conduct the raid swiftly and nab 35 people.

All who had illegal connections were named in the complaint and an FIR was registered against them, including Anthony, who himself had illegal connections in his house. They were produced in Session court and given bail, while utilities in other regions resort to hydro disconnections during arrears season. Chief Vigilance Officer of BEST, RJ Singh said, "Most of these are commercial establishments in these shanties, which steal electricity. It is very important to catch hold of the operators as they are the providers and we need to break their backbone."

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Utility Operations News

US Electricity Demand 2018-2050 projects slower growth as energy consumption, power generation, air conditioning, and electric heating shift with efficiency standards, commercial floor space, industrial load, and household growth across the forecast horizon.

Key Points

A forecast of US power use across homes, commercial space, industrial load, and efficiency trends from 2018 to 2050.

✅ 2018 generation hit record; residential sales up 6%.

✅ Efficiency curbs demand; growth lags population and floor space.

✅ Commercial sales up 2%; industrial demand fell 3% in 2018.

Last year's Houston cold winter and hot summer drove power use to record levels, especially among households that rely on electricity for air conditioning during extreme weather conditions.

Electricity generation increased 4 per cent nationwide in 2018 and produced 4,178 million megawatt hours, driven in part by record natural gas generation across the U.S., surpassing the previous peak of 4,157 megawatt hours set in 2007, the Energy Department reported.

U.S. households bought 6 percent more electricity in 2018 than they did the previous year, despite longer-term declines in national consumption, reflecting the fact 87 percent of households cool their homes with air conditioning and 35 percent use electricity for heating.

Electricity sales to the commercial sector increased 2 percent in 2018 compared to the previous year while the industrial sector bought 3 percent less last year.

Going forward, the Energy Department forecasts that electricity consumption will grow at a slower pace than in recent decades, aligning with falling sales projections as technology improves and energy efficiency standards moderate consumption.

The economy and population growth are primary drivers of demand and the government predicts the number of households will grow at 0.7 percent per year from now until 2050 but electricity demand will grow only by 0.4 percent annually.

Likewise, commercial floor space is expected to increase 1 percent per year from now until 2050 but electricity sales will increase only by half that amount.

Globally, surging electricity demand is putting power systems under strain, providing context for these domestic trends.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Power Generation News