Heterogeneous impacts of fear and policy on building energy use during COVID-19 in South Korea

The COVID-19 pandemic created a unique natural experiment in energy consumption, fundamentally reshaping demand. We analyzed electricity use in over one million South Korean buildings across six functional categories (May 2020 to April 2022). Using a panel regression with an instrumental variable strategy, we disentangle fear-driven behavioral responses (proxied by local mortality) from policy-driven mandates. Our empirical findings reveal heterogeneous impacts: fear reduced industrial and civic/business electricity use, yet counterintuitively increased residential and commercial/retail demand, often driven by safety signaling (e.g., enhanced ventilation). Stricter anti-contagion policies increased energy intensity in most nonresidential buildings due to compliance with heightened ventilation standards, but unexpectedly reduced residential consumption, likely reflecting restricted social activities and efficiency gains from appliance upgrades. These effects generally diminish over time, with distinct adaptation speeds across building types. Our study highlights that future crisis-era energy policies must be sector-specific, time-sensitive, and regionally adaptive to effectively manage demand shocks and sectoral vulnerabilities.