Power cut: Kiwis used 12% less in lockdown

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-12-17 06:06

New Zealand

Waitaki Dam - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waitaki_Dam_001.JPG

An NZ-China team has delved into how COVID-19 measures affected electricity demand in the year to February 2021. The researchers found the nationwide Level-4 lockdown coincided with a 12% decrease in electricity demand compared to other alert levels. They say a dry winter and spring occurred alongside high power demand during 2020’s winter, which meant higher-than-expected coal and gas generation, and lower hydro output. This “dry year problem” needs to be tackled to develop a more sustainable electricity sector, say the authors.

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Research Elsevier, Web page

Journal/
conference: Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Auckland, China University of Geosciences, China

Funder: This work was financially supported by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Endeavour Fund 2017 (Research project 3714101).

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