The role of hydropower in the renewable energy industry in reducing CO2 emissions in COVID-19

Become a necessary strategy for curbing a fast rise in infections because of the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) social pandemic distance. However, the government's strategy has had an effect on the life and socio-economic activities of citizens because the pandemic had to be coping with new adaptive measures. The study therefore explores the links between the existing COVID-19 hydropower pandemic and the reduction of CO2 emissions in the power sector. This paper examines the COVID-19 pandemic trend in the hydropower and energy sector in relation to reduction of CO2 emissions by systematically reviewing secondary information from document reports and existing literatures. Findings from this article provide empirical evidence for the COVID-19 effect of a CO2 emission reduction during a pandemic on the hydroelectric and energy sectors. More importantly, the findings of the study examine COVID-19's energy relations, its influence on the hydroelectricity sectors as compared to other renewables, COVID-19's impact on energy and oil demand as well as COVID-19's lock-up relationship on CO2 emissions reduction. Finally, policymakers are led to choose to produce sustainable energy and to reduce CO2 emissions.


Introduction
An global outbreak is a pandemic and in 2020 most economies suffered by the existing Coronavirus 2019 (COVID- 19), with its first case from South China after November 2019.(Ma 2020).No one knew then that in 2020 the world would be a shock (Venter et al. 2020).By December 2020, approximately 80 million people in 190 countries had been confirmed, with more than 1.7 million deaths recorded globally at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems and Engineering (CSSE) (Jnr 2020; John Hopkins center 2020).Despite this, many European countries have reached the height of the first Coronavirus 2019 wave and are currently experiencing the second virus wave and daily new cases arise.The economy of several countries was however affected in 2020 by COVID-19 and the hydropower sector may not be excluded.As reported in the literature, various sectors were therefore affected by the pandemic (Jnr, 2020;Bokolo 2020).The worldwide consumption of renewable energy, as IEA (2020a) highlighted, increased by 1,5 % and in the first four months of 2020, renewable energy generation grew almost to 3 %, compared with 2019.This is due to the fact that hydroelectricity, solar, wind and so forthe projects carried out over the last year have lower operating costs.Furthermore, IEA findings (2020) indicate that the impact on international energy from the COVID-19 pandemic is seven times higher than in 2008.In addition, results from the 2019 IHA suggest that hydropower generated around 4,315 Terawatt-hours (TWh) worldwide, a definite increase compared with that of the 2018 4,210TWh generation (IEA 2020).In addition to the emission of global carbon (CO2), Olivier, Schure and Peters (2017) recorded an increase of 72% in Greenhouse (GHG) emissions as a result of fossil fuel combustion that is cause for concern (Anthony Jnr et al. 2020).An annual increase is therefore constantly seen (Schure, et al., 2017).Furthermore, results from previous studies (Schure, et al., 2017) show that carbon emission trends rose from 1% in 2017 and 2% in 2018 from 0.3% in 2016.Moreover, in the year 2018, 76% of the energy supply consumed across the world is from fossil fuel combustion (Olivier, et al., 2017) which affects the environment and biodiversity as well as inherently results in climate change (Bazzaz 1990).In conjunction with the COVID-19 pandemic, government regulation and politics have also had a major effect on world energy demand (Luo et al. 2020; Wang et al. 2020).During the close of international borders and residents' housing, the mobility of the population was reduced and the patterns for energy use were changed (Jackson et al. 2020).As of May 2020, global electricity demand dropped because of lock-up but not as low as oil demand.The electricity use is projected to be around 2.2% lower than in 2019 in countries such as the US and Europe, where high demand in domestic electricity is partly compensating for a decrease in demand for industrial and commercial electricity.In the United States, renewable energy sources are projected to grow from 18 % in 2019 to 20 % in 2020, compared to coal in 2020, as of June 2020.(Cominola et al. 2020).This is because energy from renewable sources was resilient to the COVID-19 quarantine measures imposed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (Khanna 2020).Since March 2020, energy demand in Europe has been declining significantly following the use of quarantine and lockdown by several countries in order to contain the spread of COVID-19 (Cominola et al. 2020).Similarly, Europe has seen a reduction in electricity consumption of around 2 to 7 % as industries have shut down, resulting in reduced CO2 emissions because of fewer fuels used for the generation of electricity (Ash'aari et al. 2020).In addition, during working days, energy generation declined due to slower economic activity.During the COVID-19pandemic, this reduction in electricity consumption also reduced the use of hydroelectric energy sources.Hydroelectric power in Europe decreased by an average of 21 % between the lockdowns compared to the baseline values for 2017 to 2020 (Boretti 2021;Cominola et al. 2020).Hydropower thus is significant in reducing CO2, as hydro-power generation reduces CO2 emissions and encourages the transition to greener and cleaner energy (Vaka et al. 2020;Yusup et al. 2020).The link between hydropower, energy and CO2 emissions in the COVID-19 pandemic must therefore be explored.The following research questions are therefore presented in this study.
What is the impact on the energy sector of the COVID 19 pandemic?Compared to other renewables, what is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic?How does COVID-19 have an impact during the lockdown on CO2 emissions?This paper discusses the relation between COVID-19 and the energy sector and the connection between COVID-19 and the hydropower sector, compared to other renewables, in order to address research issues.In addition, COVID-19 and oil demand are explored, and COVID-19 has been correlated during lockdown with CO2 emissions.Secondary data were used to examine the impact on the COVID-19 pandemic on the hydro and energy sector with regard to CO2 emissions from documents and existing literature.Findings from this study also provide insights into the links between hydropower, energy and CO2 reduction in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Method and material
The study uses secondary data from existing literature, document reports, and web sources to review previous studies.Secondary data provided empirical evidence of a link between hydropower, the power sector and reduced CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 pandemic

Search strategy and data sources
In order to search from Online Databases it is necessary to use the keywords.COVID-19, hydropower, COVID-19, CO2 emissions, COVID-19 and oil demand, COVID-19, hydropower and pandemics are the keywords.The keyword search for Google Scholar, Science Direct, ProQuest, Taylor & Francis, Springer, ACM and Wiley has taken place in the following online databases.In May 2020, the review took place.

Criteria for inclusion and exclusion
In the validity determination of the sources selected, the inclusion and exclusion criteria were specified, given the importance of the secondary data selection phase.Sources were included if the focus of the COVID-19 pandemic was to be on hydropower, the energy sectors and the reduction of CO2 emissions.In the present study, published sources from journals, documents, web sources and blogs are also included, as mentioned earlier.Papers were not included which were not written in English.

Evaluation of quality
The scientific rigor, method of research, the credibility of the findings and the relevance of the research related to hydroelectricity, energy sector and the reduction of carbon emissions during the COVID-19 Pandemic were assessed for the selected secondary sources.In order to check the indexing of articles in the ISI Science and Scopus database, the selected articles of journals were also evaluated.The review indicates that over 50% of journals are indexed in ISI Science and/or Scopus databases.

Extraction and summary of data
The aim of this review phase is to extract and synthesize results from the sources selected on the basis of the questions investigated.Consequently, secondary data on hydropower, energy and CO2 emission reductions were collected separately from each source during the COVID-19 pandemic.As shown in Figure 4, the study areas are categorized in order to describe areas which have been studied during the COVID-19 pandemic, in connection with the hydroelectric, energy and CO2 reductions

Findings
This section presents results from the review, based on previous studies examining COVID-19's relationship with CO2 emissions during the pandemic on hydroelectric power and the energy sector.

Hydropower and CO2 studies prior to COVID-19
Few studies have helped explore COVID-19, CO2 emissions, the energy sector and the hydro-power sector in particular.Some of these studies are examined as shown in Table 1.Research from the study examined shows that the authors investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in several areas.Table 1 shows None of the study reviewed however studied the link between the hydroelectricity, energy sector and the reduction of CO2 emissions over the COVID-19 pandemic.A study is therefore needed which gives an insight into hydropower, energy and CO2 emissions during the pandemic of the COVID-19.

COVID-19 impact on the energy sector in renewables
According to the IEA, the temporary shutdown of industry in countries due to the tight lockdown resulted in a drop of 5 to 10% in demand for electricity, in particular in Europe, such as Spain, Italy and so forth, due to the tight lockdown.This brought about the need for electricity operators to balance energy demand and supply (Chen et al., 2020; Jnr et al., 2020).As renewable energy sources remain largely untouched, demand has grown (IEA 2020).Through their flexibility and environmental benefits, energy consumption from renewable sources increased enormously (IEA 2020).However, due to global crises, IEA (2020) had to revisit its forecast.IEA therefore forecasts that renewable electricity will decline by 13 % by 2020 compared to 2019 (IEA 2020).
In addition, investment in renewable energy has increased with investors, mainly in Europe, pushing oil companies to reduce CO2 emissions (Jnr 2020; Wolde-Rufael and Weldemeskel 2020).Financial institutions are therefore redirecting funding to renewable inventions.In the midst of the pandemic production of renewable energy, the marginal energy generation costs were therefore lower than those of other energy fields (Waheed 2020).The United Nations Environment Program has projected a 7.61% decrease annually in global emissions of CO2 from 2020 to 2030 to keep temperatures at below 1.6°C.A change to renewable sources of energy like hydropower is supported by recognition of environmental benefits such as cleaner air, better water quality and a reduction in CO2 emissions (Waheed 2020).

COVID-19 effect in the hydropower industry in relation to other renewables
A growth in global hydropower as of 2019 The International Hydropower Association has registered it (IHA).The results show that doubts exist about what to do We expect a global COVID-19 pandemic at least three years after 2020.The growth rate was 1.2%, as we saw in 2019.Annual installed capacity increase achieved (IHA -2020).In addition, the IHA survey results indicated that this is due to pandemics worldwide between March and April 2020 and that participants have been digitalized in all hydropower plants.However, there are a few key workers who ensure that they meet their energy requirements for maintenance, savings and supply.As a result of their confidence in current energy technology, policy and regulations in the field of long-term energy, IHA's results have shown that current COMVID 19 has fewer effects on the hydropower sector (IHA 2020).The IHA commented, however, that due to COVID-19, a lot of hydroelectric projects have been funded without security.So, because of currency and cash shortages, they have explained that (IHA 2020).In addition, IHA has reported that energy demand has fallen and energy prices have fallen in some markets because of COVID-19, in which negative pricing exists at some points (IHA 2020).Similarly, it is still sometimes difficult for few network operators to maintain network stability.However, it should be noted that long-term energy purchases funded projects are generally unaffected (IHA, 2020).Moreover, IEA (2020) has confirmed, as with other energy sources like coal and crude oil, that renewables have not been significantly affected.Their demand has grown because renewable energies are largely untouched.Consequently, hydropower-dependent countries have constant electricity, which is a reliable energy source during the pandemic, for essential workers to use in their jobs during the Pandemic (IHA 2020).In comparison with other sources of renewable energy, literature results show that hydropower is less influenced by the pandemic (IEA 2020).
The economic prospect of coronavirus was investigated (COVID19).
Results indicate that in some countries, COVID-19 pandemic affected hydropower project developments.

Relationship between COVID-19, oil demand and CO2 emission
The OPEC, an international organization that includes 13 petroleum-exporting countries, has found that the pandemic has affected the operation of the petroleum economy in relation to energy generation (Peters, 2020).The effects of COVID-19 on global oil demand, according to OPEC (2020a), have been detrimental for the first and second quarters of 2020.As of May 2020, the most damaged transport fuel and industrial fuel in Europe and America resulted in lower CO2 emissions due to reduced mobility in urban areas and government action during the COVId-19 pandemic (OPEC 2020b).In June of 2020, continents like America, Europe and Middle East have reported a considerably lower demand for jet fuel and petrol as against those for years, with an even more declining volume (Davies-Jones 2020).(OPEC 2020).In addition, as a response to the 2020 crisis oil production, countries like Norway, which is one of Europe's largest crude oil producers, have had to lower oil production to stabilise its market (Kluge 2020).Thus, demand for crude oil deteriorated between March 2020 and May 2020 and high production, affecting oil storage capacity was observed (Aktar, et al., 2020).Thus, an oil surplus occurred as of April 2020 and, although crude oil products have been stored onshore and floating boats (Aktar, et al., 2020).),there were serious concerns about the storage of excess crude oil.

COVID-19 and CO2 emission during the lockdown
In 2018, the IPCC produced a report which states that climate is increasing by 0.2°C per decade (Jackson et al. 2020).In 2018 the report was released by Jackson et al. (2020) .Even if renewable energy is becoming increasingly known and utilized.Renewable energies have been found to be consumed in parallel, rather than renewables substituting hydrocarbon fuels.According to IEA (2020b), from 1990 to 2019, the worldwide increase in CO2 emissions has been steadily increasing.Therefore, in developed economies or countries (such as Japan, South Korea) and in other countries, the IEA (2020b) measured CO2 emissions.Results show a reduction in CO2 emissions from 1990 to 2019 across advanced economies.The results showed, however, a doubling of CO2 emissions in other countries in the 20th century.In 2020, however, COVID had so badly affected the world that partial and total lockdowns in countries worldwide had to be implemented differently, resulting in surprisingly lower pollution.In Wuhan, China, the first discovery was made of the virus and the earliest quarantine started a reduction in emissions of CO2 and nitrogen (NO2).Today, more than 84 countries have implemented total or partial lock-ups worldwide by May 2020.This locking reduced transport and reduced industrial activities, leading to minimal emissions of CO2 and NO2 (Davies-Jones 2020; Mariann 2020).Furthermore, the temporary ban on international travel and activities (such as international trade) has been beneficial to the environment because CO2 and NO2 emissions have been reduced.Climate change and greenhouse gas emissions by reducing hydrocarbon fuel and using renewable energy are highly sensitized.IEA (2020c) findings have however shown that the CO2 emission in large countries that were aimed at containing the spread of the virus during the period from March 2020 until May 2020 was reduced substantially.Obviously COVID-19 appears more impactful than any disaster or past pandemic on CO2 emissions (IEA 2020).Also, further findings from the International Energy Agency revealed that global CO2 emissions would be reduced to 8% at the same level as demand for oil, coal and gas decreased 10 years ago (IEA 2020).The decreased uses of cars also helped reduce global CO2 and NO2 emissions during the pandemic.Researchers like Venter et al. (2020) supported this, saying air pollution in more than 27 countries decreased by 20 % during the pandemic.

Discussion
Renewable energy, especially hydropower, solar and wind, are widely consumed, providing energy without increasing carbon dioxide emissions.The pandemic of COVID-19 resulted in a never-ending reduction in global business (Venter et al. 2020).Different industrial sectors and cars contribute to air pollution with a large amount of CO2.The pandemic has however contributed to improving air quality, especially in locking and quarantine countries (Yusup et al. 2020).The CO2 emissions were decreased by 30% and 25 % respectively in 2020, according to the NASA report (Manan et al. 2020).Bikdeli et al. (2020) reported that between beginning of January 2020 and May 2020, 69 countries had now imposed a certain type of quarantine measures.This has led to an unprecedented reduction in the energy demand for mobility and electricity.By mid-April, energy consumption in fully closed countries had fallen by 25% compared to the 2019 average energy consumption.In the middle of January 22, 2020 and April 21, 2020, oil prices had fallen to about 85% (Khanna 2020).Researchers such as Le Quéré et al. (2020); Khanna (2020) therefore expects CO2 emissions in April 2020 to be 18 % lower than their average levels for 2019.In a CarbonBrief report (www.carbonbrief.org),published on 19 May 2020, around 18 % of the daily CO2 emissions in 69 countries are reported globally (Bikdeli et al. 2020;Peters et al. 2020).The United States recorded +0,002% electricity production in March 2020 with 14% of its CO2 emissions, according to Yusup et al. (2020).As of March 2020.Similarly, Europe has recorded −13 % of electricity generation at 6 % CO2 emissions (UK, Poland, Germany, France and Italy).+16% of electricity generation was recorded in India at 7% of CO2 emissions.Electricity generation and CO2 emissions decreased in other countries as a result of national restrictions imposed by their respective governments (Yusup et al. 2020).This study therefore highlights guidelines for renewable energy as hydroelectric energy during the COVID-19 pandemic.Research argues that policymakers need to act now and ensure that renewable energy sources are taken to facilitate the ongoing energy transition.This study contributes to current literature showing that the share of renewable energy sources consumed during the pandemic has increased.The results have shown that the CO2 emission, air pollution and carbon footprint have fallen as a result of the pandemic.Hydropower is suggested as renewable sources of energy in this study, as it is ecological because it does not emit carbon emissions, thereby contributing to climate change mitigation.

Implications and limitation Implications for practice
In modern life now without precedent, the energy sector has a major role to play in the pandemic.The recent COVID-19 pandemic has influenced society to change the path towards decarbonisation and the implementation of clean energy technologies for sustainable energy development.Substantially providing energy and dealing with climate change, renewables such as hydropower reduce CO2 emissions (Das 2020).The length of the current pandemic and how the recovery will look and therefore how the CO2 emissions will be impacts is currently uncertain.
This study therefore explores the relationship between hydropower, energy and CO2 emissions decreases during the COVID-19 pandemic in connection with green energy.Literature findings (Yusup et al. 2020) show that the global demand for energy in the first quarter of 2020 was reduced by 3.8 % compared to the same first quarter of 2019 as a result of a decrease in global activities.In addition, this study advocates keeping a record of evolving CO2 emissions, as this can help policymakers inform themselves about future emission pathways following the pandemic.Obviously, the results of such a study show that COVID-19 has reduced significantly total energy consumption and carbon emissions.As a result, the price of oil and coal was also greatly reduced.People will therefore choose to use more renewable energy to help reduce emissions of carbon.In contrast, fossil energy sources can also be used by consumers when fossil energy prices are low.In addition, one of the issues of renewable energy distribution is maintenance.Due to the lock-up or the social distance due to COVID-19, the possibility to maintain the systems may pose a problem.However, this issue can be mitigated since the majority of countries are now partially confined, so technical teams across the country can easily carry out maintenance.

Implications for policy
In determining the energy and brute domestic product of a country the oil and gas industry plays a major part (GDP).But the oil and gas industry also contributes to environmental issues, including CO2 emissions.New policies and approaches are therefore needed to support and encourage the use of renewable energy resources (Vaka et al. 2020).This study's research findings on green energy therefore illuminate the link between hydro, energy and CO2 reduction during the COVID-19 pandemic.This is the only way to improve understanding.
The results of this study provide a roadmap for governments toward a low-carbon energy transition, as Taylor et al. (2020) recommends.Finally, the findings of this paper provide empirical evidence for the impact of COVID19 during and after the pandemic on CO2 reductions in the energy sector.Thus the IHA (2020 ) recommended that concession agreement deadlines for hydroelectric projects be extended to ensure investments are not lost to smooth recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, literature findings indicate that this pandemic has resulted in lower CO2 emissions, lower renewable energy prices, lower oil prices insistently, higher debt in the fossil fuel sector and raised the investment concern about the impact of fossil fuels on CO2 emissions.The effect was to lower investment in fossil fuels under environmental regulation and to make renewable energy such as hydropower one of the fastest growing sectors.The pandemic has led to low-carbon infrastructures that can reduce CO2 emissions and increase jobs.This could boost the economy.

Limitations
There are restrictions on every study and this study is no exception.This study used only secondary data from existing literature and documents.The effects of the hydropower, energy industry and CO2 emissions reduction during the COVID-19 pandemic were not assessed with hydrological data, power market data or atmospheric data.

Conclusion and the future
The COVID-19 pandemic has created an international public health crisis and has significantly reduced social and government responses to this crisis which have had a negative impact on the gas and petrol industries.COVID-19 has had many impacts on society.This study therefore examines the impact on the energy sector of the pandemic.IHA findings (2020) indicate that supply and demand of electricity have decreased in most of the countries where lockdowns and restrictions were introduced, although residential loads have been raised.Total generations of energy have fallen and coal-based energy generation has been most affected.In contrast, during the pandemic the proportion of renewable energies increased.But the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on the energy sector are not yet certain, as the world is still facing this pandemic.
In this article, we examine the link between hydropower, the energy sector and CO2 emission cuts during the COVID-19 pandemic.Secondary data from documents and literature were used to analyze the impact on the hydropower and the energy sectors of the COVID-19 pandemic with regard to carbon emissions.This study therefore presents findings on the effects of COVID-19 on the renewable energy sector; the effect of COVID-19 on the hydropower sector in relation to other renewable energy sources.Furthermore, IHA intends to contribute to the full recovery after the pandemic by promoting research into technological progress within the hydropower sector.In future work, analyzing energy market figures, hydrological data and atmospheric data to monitor the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of energy production costs will involve analyzing power market information.