The world’s largest 40 days lockdown in India has dropped the nation’s energy consumption by 30%, said the Paris based International Energy Agency (IEA).
IEA reported that “India’s full national lockdown has reduced energy demand by almost 30%, meaning that with each additional week of lockdown, annual energy demand is reduced by 0.6%. Overall we estimate that a further month of the restrictions in situ as of early April would scale back global annual energy demand by around 1.5%”.
Though transportation fuel requirement has dwindled to a great extent because of the prevailing lockdown, the domestic cooking gas has seen a sharp rise meanwhile. The refinery sections are thus functioning at half of their potentiality. The carbon emissions have also shrunk to a certain level due to the 40 days ongoing lockdown.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a disturbance in the global energy system in more than seventy years. “The report projects that energy demand will fall 6% in 2020 – seven times the decline after the 2008 global financial crisis. In absolute terms, the decline is unprecedented – the equivalent of losing the whole energy demand of India, the world’s third-largest energy consumer,” the report said.
The worldwide power supply is expected to decline by 5% this year which is considered the largest after the Great Depression happened and is eight times the lowering in 2009 during the global financial crisis.
