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The Effects of COVID-19 on Renewable Energy Supply, Demand and Energy Mix

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "C: Energy Economics and Policy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 June 2023) | Viewed by 8073

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Jönköping International Business School (JIBS), Jönköping University, Room B5017, P.O. Box 1026, SE-551 11 Jönköping, Sweden
Interests: applied microeconomics; globalization; development strategy; efficiency; productivity and growth with application to manufacturing and services
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a significant reduction in manufacturing production and provision of services around the world, in particular travel and tourism. As a result, energy demand has dropped globally, affecting the price of energy. This has in turn influenced the profitability of investment in renewables, curbing investments and threatening the expansion of clean energy technologies and their shares of the energy mix. This Special Issue welcomes the submission of high-quality papers presenting empirical evidence on the effects of COVID-19 on the energy market, in particular trends in energy use efficiency and development of renewable clean energy technologies.

Prof. Dr. Almas Heshmati
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • energy use efficiency
  • renewable energy
  • energy demand
  • energy supply
  • energy mix
  • sustainable development

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 2386 KiB  
Article
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Biomass Supply Chains: The Case of the Canadian Wood Pellet Industry
by Bruno Gagnon, Heather MacDonald, Emily Hope, Margaret Jean Blair and Daniel W. McKenney
Energies 2022, 15(9), 3179; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15093179 - 27 Apr 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2834
Abstract
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global economic activity in all sectors, including forest industries. Changes in demand for forest products in North America over the course of the pandemic have affected both primary processors and downstream industries reliant on residues, including wood [...] Read more.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global economic activity in all sectors, including forest industries. Changes in demand for forest products in North America over the course of the pandemic have affected both primary processors and downstream industries reliant on residues, including wood pellet producers. Wood pellets have become an internationally traded good, mostly as a substitute for coal in electricity generation, with a significant proportion of the global supply coming from Canadian producers. To determine the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Canadian wood pellet industry, economic and market data were evaluated, in parallel with a survey of Canadian manufacturers on their experiences during the first three waves of the pandemic (March 2020 to September 2021). Overall, the impact of the pandemic on the Canadian wood pellet industry was relatively small, as prices, exports, and production remained stable. Survey respondents noted some negative impacts, mostly in the first months of the pandemic, but the quick recovery of lumber production helped to reduce the impact on wood pellet producers and ensured a stable feedstock supply. The pandemic did exacerbate certain pre-existing issues, such as access to transportation services and labour availability, which were still a concern for the industry at the end of the third wave in Canada. These results suggest that the Canadian wood pellet industry was resilient to disruptions caused by the pandemic and was able to manage the negative effects it faced. This is likely because of the integrated nature of the forest sector, the industry’s reliance on long-term supply contracts, and feedstock flexibility, in addition to producers and end-users both being providers of essential services. Full article
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18 pages, 6194 KiB  
Article
Projection of Post-Pandemic Italian Industrial Production through Vector AutoRegressive Models
by Antonio Oliva, Francesco Gracceva, Daniele Lerede, Matteo Nicoli and Laura Savoldi
Energies 2021, 14(17), 5458; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14175458 - 2 Sep 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2265
Abstract
Energy system models for the analysis of future scenarios are mainly driven by the set of energy service demands that define the broad outlines of socio-economic development throughout the model time horizon. Here, the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the drivers [...] Read more.
Energy system models for the analysis of future scenarios are mainly driven by the set of energy service demands that define the broad outlines of socio-economic development throughout the model time horizon. Here, the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the drivers of the industrial production in six energy-intensive subsectors are addressed using Vector AutoRegressive models. The model results are computed either considering or not considering the effects of the pandemic. The comparison to established pre-pandemic trends allows for validating the robustness of the selected model. The anticipated effect of the pandemic to 2040 shows a long-term reduction by 3% to 10%, according to the different subsector, in the industrial energy service demand. When the computed service demands are used as input to the TIMES-Italy model, which shows good capability to reproduce the energy consumption of the industrial sectors in the period 2006–2020, the impact of the pandemic on energy consumption forecasts can be assessed in a business-as-usual scenario. The results show how the long-term effects of the shock caused by the pandemic could lead, by 2040, to a total industrial energy consumption 5% lower than what was foreseen before the pandemic, while the energy mix remains almost unchanged. Full article
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25 pages, 10126 KiB  
Article
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Gaseous and Solid Air Pollutants Concentrations and Emissions in the EU, with Particular Emphasis on Poland
by Aurelia Rybak and Aleksandra Rybak
Energies 2021, 14(11), 3264; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14113264 - 2 Jun 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2060
Abstract
This article presents the research on the analysis of the impact of social isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on gaseous air pollutant concentrations. For this purpose, the authors presented (thermal maps) and analyzed the concentrations of selected gases such as NO2 [...] Read more.
This article presents the research on the analysis of the impact of social isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on gaseous air pollutant concentrations. For this purpose, the authors presented (thermal maps) and analyzed the concentrations of selected gases such as NO2, CO, SO2, and PM2.5 particles during the strict quarantine period in Poland and other EU countries. Statistical analysis of the concentration level of these gases was performed. It was noticed that in Poland, Germany, and France, the concentrations of such gases as CO, NO2, and PM2.5 particles decreased, while in Italy and Spain, the tendency was the opposite. To verify whether the discovered dependencies are not a natural continuation of the trends shaping the given phenomenon, the time series of gas and PM2.5 particle emissions were analyzed. On this basis, the emission forecast up to 2023 was created, using the ARIMA class models. The obtained results allowed to construct five scenarios for the development of NO2, CO, SO2, and PM2.5 emissions until 2023, considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was stated that in the optimistic scenario, in 2023, a decrease in CO, NO2, and PM2.5 emissions could be achieved by maximums of 51%, 95%, and 28%, respectively. Full article
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