Impact analysis of COVID-19 pandemic on the future green power sector: A case study in the Netherlands

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant changes to the power sector. This study proposes general and coherent methodological steps to explore the future impact of lockdown measures on the power sector. In a case study from the Netherlands, two lockdown levels were defined and simulated to identify the influence of the pandemic upon the sector. Moreover, four renewable scenarios were developed to represent the green transition of the Netherlands' power sector up to 2035. For this future power sector, the results show that the green transition can achieve a reduction of 65% in CO(2) emissions and 20% in power sector cost. Under the implementation of a simulated lockdown level, electricity demand decreased by 6.3% under Level 1 and 11.9% under Level 2 in 2035. The influences of lockdowns on future power sectors differ with respect to scenario. In addition, Lockdown Level 1 leads to a reduction of 8–12% in emissions and a reduction of 6–8% in cost, and Lockdown Level 2 expands this reduction to 15–21% in emissions and 11–13% in cost. The findings of this exploratory study can elucidate what may happen in the future green power sector if such event arises.