Electricity Demand -- EIA -- Latest Data -- February, 2021

US electricity sales in megawatthours will be back to 2019 (pre-pandemic levels) by July, 2021.

• compare July, 2021, data with July, 2019, data when the July, 2021, data is released in September, 2021
  

Note: in a long note like this with lots of numbers, there will be typographical and content errors; if this is important to you, go to the source.

EIA data.

Sales of electricity to ultimate customers.

Annual:

• 2018: 3,859,185
• 2019: 3,811,150 (note the drop even before the pandemic)
  
• 2020: 3,663,741

Month/Year:

• January, 2019: 328,609
• January, 2020: 311,318 (a drop from a year earlier; lockdown did not being until after January 2020)
  
• January, 2021: 321,219 (already exceeds that of January, 2020, which, as noted, not yet in the pandemic lockdown)
  

Month/Year:

• February, 2019: 295,798
• February, 2020: 290,120
• February, 2021: 299,051 (exceeds February, 2019)
  

YTD (January - February of indicated year)

• 2019: 624,407
• 2020: 601,438 (the draconian lockdowns did not begin until March, 2020)
  
• 2021: 620,269 (very, very close to YTD / 2019)
  

Rolling 12 months ending in February:

• 2020: 3,788,182
• 2021: 3,682,572

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Duke Energy

The reason for posting the data above was a link to a story sent by a reader. [Later: Charles Kennedy over at OilPrice covered the same story. Sounds like he agrees. It will be interesting to see who comes closest: Charles Kennedy or me. LOL.]

From that article:

In a new interview Lynn Good — CEO of Duke Energy, one of the nation's largest utility companies — said the company remains hopeful about a rebound in electricity usage but doesn't expect a full recovery until next year (2022). 

The company experienced a notable decline in overall electricity usage during the pandemic, due to a drop-off among industrial and commercial customers hammered by the downturn before the new data was released. 

"We are optimistic about the rebound," Good says. "But we still believe it's going to take us until 2022 to get back to 2019 levels."

The article is unclear whether she was talking about the US in general, or Duke's situation.

Obviously, the EIA data suggests US electricity demand will easily be back to 2019 (pre-pandemic) levels by July, 2021, well before 2022, as much as a year earlier than what the Duke Energy CEO anticipates.

It appears that the Duke CEO was talking to his shareholders (or analysts) with regard to the region he serves, the mid-Atlantic region.