Short-term impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the energy and economic performance of photovoltaics in the Spanish electricity sector

The present work investigates how the COVID-19 related lockdown imposed in Spain in between March and June 2020 affected the national electricity sector and the share of photovoltaics in the energy mix. The analysis is conducted by comparing actual electricity demand, generation and price data with forecasts based on their pre-lockdown trends. The results show that the lockdown decreased the electricity demand by 11%, and affected even more severely the price of electricity, causing a total loss for the electricity sector of 6.1 million € per day. These losses were unevenly distributed among the different power technologies of the energy mix. The market share of photovoltaics raised by almost 1% because of the lockdown-related demand drop, even if it performed at capacity factors lower than expected. Overall, because of the lockdown and of the recently installed capacity, photovoltaic provided, for the first time, more than 9% of the national electricity consumed in June 2020, more than twice the maximum share achieved in the previous years.