Some Characteristics of Commercial Load During First Wave of COVID-19 in South Africa

During the first wave regime of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments across the globe implemented lockdown measures to mitigate the spread of the disease. These measures - designed to safeguard lives - may have negatively influenced various aspects of the economy, including the energy sector. In this study, the footprints of the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns on commercial load profiles are examined at two sites in Johannesburg, South Africa: Rosebank and Roodeport. Load measurements are obtained from the state power utility, City Power, for these sites over the period of 2020. To investigate the impact of lockdown restrictions at these sites, measurements are processed as daily average loads. Investigations suggest that the COVID-19 lockdown, beginning from March 2020, impacted these commercial sites leading to reduced load consumption. The Euclidean similarity score suggests that the normalized load consumption patterns at both sites with periods corresponding to government lockdown interventions are similar. In addition, compared normalized datasets at both sites are found to be positively correlated and similar, depending on the lockdown level.