In Asia, power consumption is forecast to rebound faster. Nations where industrial production accounts for a large chunk of the economy, such as China and India, also had some of the strictest lockdowns -- a combination that hammered demand, according to BloombergNEF analyst Ali Asghar. While the IEA sees demand in China, the world’s top energy user, falling this year, official estimates put consumption in May already above last year’s levels and on course to grow as much as 3% in 2020.
Eventually, global demand for power will resume growing as nations turn more to electricity to power cars, heat homes and more, analysts said. But for now, the power sector faces a long, slow recovery.
“I don’t think we are going to turn everything on tomorrow,” Melissa Lott, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “I don’t see how that happens.”
--With assistance from Gerson Freitas Jr, Will Wade, Aaron Clark, Rajesh Kumar Singh and Jasmine Ng.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.