Consequences of Lockdown Due to COVID-19 on the Electricity Generation and Environment in South Asia

AbstractThere has been an unprecedented impact of COVID-19 outbreak worldwide. To save people from COVID-19, many countries imposed strict lockdown since March 2020 in different phases. In this paper, the impacts of COVID-19 on the power industry of Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka and its positive impacts on the environment have been investigated through the reduction of power generation and Green House Gas (GHG) emission during a certain part of the lockdown period. It is found that there was a 16.96%, 26% and 22.7% reduction of power generation in May’20 compared with that of May’19 in Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka respectively. Carbon dioxide (CO2), Sulphur dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen oxides (NOX) and fluorinated gases are the main components of Green House Gases (GHGs) where CO2 contains almost 80% of the GHGs. CO2 emission was reduced by a maximum of 22.29% in May 2020 in Bangladesh compared to May’19. India encountered a CO2 emission reduction of 29.75% in April’20 compared to April’19. NOX and SO2 reduction in India in April’20 were 29.59% and 31.19% respectively whereas in Bangladesh in May’20 during the lockdown, NOX decreased by 15.57% and SO2 increased by 23.36%. Hence, from the comparative study presented in this paper, the consequence of lockdown due to COVID-19 on the power sector and environment of three South Asian countries can be realized.