June 18 Update: Latest Trends in Estimated Load Impacts of COVID-19 Mitigation Policies
June 18, 2020
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This data is for March 15, 2020 – June 14, 2020.
As previously discussed in the first blog of this series on April 13, the Itron Forecasting Team is leveraging publicly available hourly load data for most North American Independent System Operators (ISOs) to build a picture of the load impacts of COVID-19 mitigation policies by region. To do this, actual loads when many of these policies began are compared to baseline loads without COVID-19 policy impacts.
Total ISO Impacts: Total ISO load is computed as the sum of the hourly loads across the nine ISOs for which hourly load data is publicly available. The figure below shows the average daily load reduction pre- and post- reopening of the economy for the total and individual ISOs.
Pre-Reopening of the Economy: For the aggregate ISO load, the average estimated impact is a reduction in average loads of about -7.5% over the period March 29 through May 17 when most COVID-19 mitigation policies were enacted.
Phased Reopening of the Economy: the period of May 18 through June 14 marks the start of the phased re-opening of the of the economy. Over this period, the reduction in average loads is estimated to be -3.4%, which represents a gain in average daily power consumption of about 4.0%.
For a detailed summary of the estimated load impacts for each region, go to the forecasting website to download the latest COVID-19 Load Impact memo.
The Itron Forecasting Team will continue to post updated summary blogs and corresponding memos on these trends.
Subscribe to our blog to be notified of new posts and contact us at forecasting@itron.com if you have further questions.
Dr. Frank A. Monforte is Director of Forecasting Solutions at Itron, where he is an internationally recognized authority in the areas of real-time load and generation forecasting, retail portfolio forecasting, and long-term energy forecasting. Dr. Monforte’s real-time forecasting expertise includes authoring the load forecasting models used to support real-time system operations for the North American system operators, the California ISO, the New York ISO, the Midwest ISO, ERCOT, the IESO, and the Australian system operators AEMO and Western Power. Recent efforts include authoring embedded solar, solar plant, and wind farm generation forecast models used to support real-time operations at the California ISO. Dr. Monforte founded the annual ISO/TSO Forecasting Summit that brings together ISO/TSO forecasters from around the world to discuss forecasting challenges unique to their organizations. He directs the implementation of Itron’s Retail Forecasting System, including efforts for energy retailers operating in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, France, Belgium, Italy, Australia, and the U.S. These systems produce energy forecasts for retail portfolios of interval metered and non-interval metered customers. The forecast models he has developed support forecasting of power, gas and heat demand and forecasting of wind, solar, landfill gas, and mine gas generation. Dr. Monforte presides over the annual Itron European Energy Forecasting Group meeting that brings together European Energy Forecasters for an open exchange of ideas and solutions. Dr. Monforte directed the development of Itron’s Statistically Adjusted End-Use Forecasting model and supporting data. He founded the Energy Forecasting Group, which directs primary research in the area of long-run end-use forecasting. Recent efforts include designing economic indices that provide long-run forecast stability during periods of economic uncertainty. Email Frank at frank.monforte@itron.com, or click here to connect on LinkedIn.
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