By: Marisa Ihara, Senior Project Manager

Starting on March 22, 2020, the State of New York closed all nonessential businesses to slow the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. To investigate the effects of these shutdowns on electricity demand, Concentric Energy Advisors (“Concentric”) reviewed nine weeks of New York Independent System Operator (“NYISO”) hourly load data for March 1 through May 2, 2020, including the six weeks of full state shutdown spanning March 22 through May 2, 2020.  The load data from this period of demand was compared to similar data from the prior three years, 2017, 2018 and 2019.  Concentric analyzed load data for each of NYISO’s eleven zones separately, as load shifts and reductions associated with COVID-19 closures can be expected to vary depending on the proportion of commercial load in each region.  In addition, we applied sequencing adjustments to the hourly load data for 2017, 2018 and 2019 to align their days of the week to the 2020 calendar.

Concentric Energy Advisors recently produced an important report at the request of Edison Electric Institute which proposes several fundamental changes to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (“FERC” or the “Commission”) methodology used to determine the composite zone of reasonableness and base return on equity (“ROE”) for regulated electric transmission utilities. For more information and to read the report, click the link below.

The report was authored by James Coyne, Joshua Nowak, and Julie Lieberman with analytical support from Peter Hoegler and administrative support from Jillian Barrile.