COVID-19: Impact analysis and recommendations for power sector operation

•Investigation on potential impacts in power sector due to COVID-19 pandemic.•An analysis on Indian power system scenario during pandemic is presented.•Measures to combat unforeseen reduction and shifting of electricity demand.•Recommendations are provided for risk management in power and energy sector. The demand of electricity has been reduced significantly due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Governments around the world were compelled to reduce the business activity in response to minimize the threat of coronavirus. This on-going situation due to COVID-19 has changed the lifestyle globally as people are mostly staying home and working from home if possible. Hence, there is a significant increase in residential load demand while there is a substantial decrease in commercial and industrial loads. This devastating situation creates new challenges in the technical and financial activities of the power sector and hence most of the utilities around the world initiated a disaster management plan to tackle this ongoing challenges/threats. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the global scenarios of power systems during COVID-19 along with the socio-economic and technical issues faced by the utilities. Then, this study further scrutinized the Indian power system as a case study and explored scenarios, issues and challenges currently being faced to manage the consumer load demand, including the actions taken by the utilities/power sector for the smooth operation of the power system. Finally, a set of recommendations are presented to support the government/policymakers/utilities around the world not only to overcome the current crisis but also to overcome future unforeseeable pandemic alike scenario.