Renewables Are Winners in Historic Decline in Energy Demand

The coronavirus lockdown will cause the biggest drop in energy demand in history, with only renewables managing to increase output through the crisis, Bloomberg reported.
As people around the world consume less oil, gas and coal, electricity generated from the wind and sun will keep flowing, resulting in an unprecedented 8% decline in global carbon dioxide emissions this year, according to a report from the International Energy Agency.
“The energy industry that emerges from this crisis will be significantly different from the one that came before,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said in a statement.
The pandemic has infected over 3.4 million people worldwide and killed more than 240,000 people as of May 2. With no drug to treat Covid-19 and a vaccine not expected until at least the end of the year, reducing the interaction between infected people is the only effective way to control the spread.
Those measures, however, have severe impact on economic growth and energy demand. Each month of lockdown on the scale of what’s in place this month reduces annual energy demand by 1.5%, IEA estimates.
The institution that advises nations on energy policy says that demand is likely to fall 6% in 2020, which is seven times the scale of the drop suffered in the 2008 financial crisis. In absolute terms, it’s like losing the energy demand of India. 
While all sources of energy — oil, coal, natural gas, and even nuclear — will see a decline, renewable energy is likely to be the bright spot. And though emissions will fall drastically, the IEA expects a sharp rebound without government policies pushing for a green recovery.