Corona virus countermeasures have shown a long-term appearance. The government expanded the target of the emergency declaration nationwide on April 16, and there is no sign of convergence.
As a result, there is concern about the impact on power demand. The year 2020 is the first year of power transmission and distribution separation, and electric power companies are concerned about the impact on revenue and fuel procurement. It is reported that the operation of coal-fired thermal power plants in China has fallen sharply and is still at around 90% of the previous year level.
The effects of corona virus need to be divided into short-term effects and long-term structural effects. In this issue, we will first consider the implications for the time being, and first we will look back on political events from March onwards. It is probable that the decisions that have a major impact on our industry and our lives were the request for refraining from going out and the declaration of an emergency on March 25, April 7, and 16.
March 11th : Pandemic Declaration
March 13th : New Corona Special Measures Law enacted
March 24th: Tokyo Olympic postponement decision
March 25th: Governor of Tokyo requested weekend refraining from going out
April 7th: Declaration of emergency (7 prefectures)
April 16th: Declaration of emergency (nationwide)
Now let’s look back at the movement of electricity demand during this period. The graph compares the electricity demand nationwide after March 1st with the same day last year (red: 2020, blue: 2019). The points that can be judged from this graph are as follows.
電力量 - JPN
・ There is no clear tendency at this point in time to determine the impact on power demand due to suspension of business or requests to refrain from going out.
・ The influence of weather conditions (temperature and sunshine) is relatively large (ex: low temperature and rainfall on April 13 2020 increased demand, low temperature for April 1 and 2 weeks of 2019 increased demand, decrease in demand due to the good weather during the week of April 6, 2020.
・ Demand levels on weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) have little change both year-on-year and week-on-week, and there is no impact from the request for refraining from going out (Wednesday, March 25) and the declaration of emergency (Tuesday, April 7) (Rather, it has increased slightly compared to the previous week).
The following can be inferred from these trends.
・ It is possible that the increase in demand for home use (air conditioning, lighting, etc.) due to staying at home offsets the decrease in demand for industrial use and offices to a large extent.
・ Therefore, there is a possibility that a decrease in demand for extra high voltage / high voltage and an increase in demand for low voltage power will coexist, which may affect temperature sensitivity and profit structure.
The demand graph for TEPCO is also posted. It seems that the tendency described here is stronger in TEPCO than in Japan. The measures against corona virus this time seem to continue for a while, so we should refrain from making hasty decisions. I would like to continue watching demand trends.
電力量 - TKO