In early April 2020, right after quarantine started in most Canadian provinces, EnergyRates.ca published an article describing how energy demand was being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. More than a year later, now with provinces easing restrictions and businesses starting to reopen, we’ve decided to revisit our article to see what’s changed since then.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, there have been several changes not only in our personal lives but also nationally and globally as well. For example, the stay-at-home measures introduced at the start of the pandemic meant many of us facing substantially increased home energy bills.
To give you an idea of how things have progressed over the past year, we’ll go over how the pandemic impacted energy demand at the beginning versus its impact on energy usage now, as well as how energy consumption was affected globally. Additionally, we will provide insight into how some Canadian provinces responded to the shifts in energy usage.
How COVID-19 initially impacted energy demand in Canada
In several provinces, there was a decrease in average electricity demand and consumption anywhere from a 10% decrease after the start of the lockdown in Alberta to an overall decrease of about 13% in commercial electricity load in British Columbia.
However, there wasn’t a decrease in all areas of energy consumption – residential peak demand saw about a 2% increase in Ontario, according to data from the IESO.
The table below from the Canadian Energy Research Institute summarizes the effects of COVID-19 on monthly electricity demand by province from March 2020 to June 2020:
| Provinces | AB | BC | NB | NS | ON | PE |
| March | -1.5% | 6.4% | ||||
| April | -3.7% | -5.2% | -4.9% | -5.7% | -6.3% | |
| May | -5.9% | -6.6% | -5.2% | -5.8% | -5.6% | |
| June | -5.5% | -5.7% | -10.5% | 2.4% | -8.7% |
You can learn more about the initial COVID-19 impacts on energy demand in Canada in Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, and Manitoba in our blog post here.
More than a year later, how has COVID-19 impacted energy usage in Canada?
According to data from Statistics Canada, Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan showed the largest declines in economic activities. Lowered economic activity overall was reflected in Alberta’s decline in energy prices during summer 2020. However, the province reached a record-breaking power demand in February 2021 due to a cold snap, which has greatly affected electricity prices in the province since then.
In particular, Ontario power demand has seen an increase in intra-day usages of electricity according to an article from CTV News. This is in part due to individuals staying home for both work and school, and deviating from the usual patterns of energy usage (e.g. powering up after waking up and powering down shortly after to leave for work). Demand forecasting, as a result, has become more difficult. In the future, this could affect grid stability during peak usage.
A COVID-19 impact study by London Economics International expects that long-term residential consumption in Ontario will increase by 4.6% for hydro consumption and that the load from office buildings will decrease by 6.5% as a result of the reductions of employees working in offices.
British Columbia, Quebec, New Brunswick and Manitoba overall had their economic activities less affected.
A study of residential building energy usage in Quebec City found that overall, COVID-19 impacts on energy usage were only found when lockdown restrictions were the strictest. Peak values of consumption appeared to be the same overall, just distributed differently in comparison to non-restriction times.
Has global energy consumption also been affected by COVID-19?
There has definitely been changes in world energy usage, demand, and consumption due to the pandemic.
For example, an article published in Appl Energy noted a drop in global energy demand during the lockdown as a result of restrictions of social activities, economic activity, construction, and manufacturing. A comparison between July 2020 and July 2019 found that peak reduction rates of electricity consumption were larger than 10% in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, China and India during July 2020.
Additionally, traditional fossil energy demand declined whereas renewable energy demand increased as a result of lockdown measures according to the IEA.
How much renewable energy represented a region’s electricity mix depended also on wind and solar parks in operation, weather conditions, and total demand. For example, in June and July, hydroelectricity made up a larger portion of renewable energy generation in China as a result of the heavy rain season whereas hydroelectricity generation tapered off in November due to seasonal differences.
In Europe, lowered electricity demand recovered to 2019 levels as restrictions were relaxed in October 2020 – by the end of the year, there was a marked recovery of electricity demand that was even above 2019 levels after values were adjusted for the weather.
For India, electricity demand recovered to above 2019 levels in early August 2020, reaching 8% above 2019 demand at the year’s end.
How did Canadian provinces react to the pandemic energy-wise?
In response to the pandemic and subsequent restrictions on various activities and businesses, several provinces launched programs to assist residential, commercial, and small business consumers with paying utilities. We’ve listed such programs by province below:
Alberta
In Alberta, a 90-day deferral for utility payments was available for Albertans who consumed less than 250,000 kWh (kilowatt-hours) of electricity per year, and less than 2,500 GJ (gigajoules) of natural gas per year.
Quebec
In Quebec, measures were introduced such that customers would not be cut off from power for non-payment – administration fees were suspended for non-payment until September 30, 2020.
British Columbia
In BC, BC Hydro introduced the COVID-19 Relief fund to assist customers with paying their hydro bills. If customers were approved, they would receive a one-time bill credit equivalent to 3 times the amount of their average monthly bill amount.
Ontario
During summer 2020, the Ontario government made $9 million available for the COVID-19 Energy Assistance Program for supporting residential customers with overdue amounts on their energy bills as a result of the pandemic. Customers were eligible for up to $750 in support for going towards electricity and natural gas bills. Additionally, consumers could also save on energy bills by using energy during off-peak hours as per time-of-use pricing in Ontario.
