ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION AND MARKET PRICES IN SERBIA: Impact of the Pandemic of COVID-1.

The COVID-19 pandemic has begun in early 2020 and still continues to strongly affect the entire world delivering a significant global, shock, but varying across countries and commodity sectors. The Government of the Republic of Serbia has been adopting different measures to slow down the dissemination of the coronavirus, specifically nationwide lockdown in March and April 2020. Business activities have been reduced. The pandemic situation has changed the lifestyle as people are mostly staying home and working from home. This paper provides a review of unprecedented impacts of COVID-19 pandemic, with restrictions and lockdown in Serbia, on electricity sector at this stage of the crisis. The outcomes offer a contribution to the body of literature because limited research has been conducted on these relationships in case of Serbia. Sets of statistical indicators are used to analyze changes the electricity sector has been facing. Data visualization is used to compare developments during the pandemic with those of previous years. Our research and data-driven analysis of these impacts should improve the understanding of the techno-economic effects of unforeseen events, such as a pandemic, on the power system, scrutinizing if effects could be relatively short-lived or longer-lasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]