Effect of Covid-19 and Lock-down on the Electricity Sector in Bangladesh

Sieed, J.; Komiyama, R.; Fujii, Y.; Ieee,

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has brought unprecedented global health and economic crisis in the year 2020. The energy sector is also severely affected by this crisis, which has slowed transport, trade and economic activities across the globe. Many of the countries had to adopt full and/or partial lock-down measures for a significant duration in order to prevent the spread of this highly contagious virus, which in turn had profound impact on the dynamics of the most favorable mode of final energy, electricity. In this paper, we analyze the impact of covid-19 and reduced economic activity due to lockdown on Bangladesh electricity sector in detail. Reduction of electricity demand, system load factor, load curve, fuel cost for generation from fossil fuels, changes in generation mix and growth of on-grid renewable electricity generation have been analyzed. In addition, current government plan for the continued growth and development of the sector has been reviewed to justify the resiliency of the system to overcome major obstacles. Several policy recommendations have been made to improve system efficiency and economic performance for sustainable development.