COVID19: Impact on Indian Power Sector

The 2019 Corona-virus (COVID19), a highly communicable disease has spread across borders and geographies, severely affected the entire world and caused significant risks to the entire global economy. The disease has spread to 28 states and 8 union territories around the country and infected more than 3.68 million people. To slow down the spread of the virus, central and state governments across the nation have forced restrictions on most socio-economic activities. These include complete or partial lockdowns, janta Curfews, daytime curfews, closure of educational institutions and non-essential businesses, and the ban on public meetings. About 1.3 billion people of the Indian population, were subject to partial or complete lockdowns and almost all of the global population is littered with some form of prevention measures. COVID19 pandemic has caused an array of new challenges for the power sector, with utilities and operators of critical infrastructure working to keep the continuity of supply and demand all while confronting their workforce and operational limitations. This paper discusses the impact of the COVID19 crisis on the Indian power sector and also take a closer look at the potential impact of sectorial variables such as demand, delivery, resources, capital expenditure, and investment. The article also highlights the steps taken by government predominantly the power utilities to mitigate and manage the impact, especially to provide uninterrupted power supply in lockdown affected areas. The analysis presented is evolving as revealing the situation in India.