diff --git a/doc/release_notes.rst b/doc/release_notes.rst
index f859646b..7f4dac1c 100644
--- a/doc/release_notes.rst
+++ b/doc/release_notes.rst
@@ -17,6 +17,8 @@ Upcoming Release
 
 * Renamed script file from PyPSA-EUR ``build_load_data`` to ``build_electricity_demand``.
 
+* Adressed deprecation warnings for ``pandas=2.0``. ``pandas=2.0`` is now minimum requirement.
+
 PyPSA-Eur 0.8.0 (18th March 2023)
 =================================
 
diff --git a/envs/environment.yaml b/envs/environment.yaml
index 0a9891a5..baa84f69 100644
--- a/envs/environment.yaml
+++ b/envs/environment.yaml
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ dependencies:
 - lxml
 - powerplantmatching>=0.5.5
 - numpy<1.24
-- pandas>=1.4
+- pandas>=2.0
 - geopandas>=0.11.0
 - xarray
 - rioxarray
diff --git a/scripts/build_electricity_demand.py b/scripts/build_electricity_demand.py
index b86b4a5f..790a958f 100755
--- a/scripts/build_electricity_demand.py
+++ b/scripts/build_electricity_demand.py
@@ -80,11 +80,8 @@ def load_timeseries(fn, years, countries, powerstatistics=True):
     def rename(s):
         return s[: -len(pattern)]
 
-    def date_parser(x):
-        return dateutil.parser.parse(x, ignoretz=True)
-
     return (
-        pd.read_csv(fn, index_col=0, parse_dates=[0], date_parser=date_parser)
+        pd.read_csv(fn, index_col=0, parse_dates=[0], date_format="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ")
         .filter(like=pattern)
         .rename(columns=rename)
         .dropna(how="all", axis=0)