Abstract:

In March 2020, the World Health Organization announced the Corona Virus Disaase (COVID-19) to be a global pandemic. Then, many countries have implemented some restrictions to decrease mobility and to slow down the spread of the pandemic. Because of the COVID-19 restrictions, some business activities have been suspended, distance education has been adapted instead of face-to-face education and working at home models have been implemented. Thus, these processes have led to impacts on the electricity sector in terms of both generation and consumption. This study investigates the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and distance (online) education on the electricity consumption of Gümüşhane University's main campus (Gümüşhanevî Campus), which is located in the Gümüşhane central province. To show the effects of lockdown and online education, due to the COVID-19 pandemic on energy consumption, the energy consumption data of the campus for January 1st, 2019 to December 31st, 2020 have been analyzed. First, the energy consumption profile of each year has been analyzed monthly to present the similarity of the periods before the COVID-19. Then the lockdown period has been compared with last year's same education period. The analysis results have been interpreted in terms of the reducing of consumption and drawn power profile. The results indicate the dramatic power consumption reduction of the main campus and bring forward to discuss online education options for some courses which can be appropriate through distance education after the COVID-19 pandemic end.

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