Persistent impacts of covid pandemic on residential electricity consumption

In response to the covid pandemic, residential electricity use changed in 2020. In California, government-mandated lockdowns closed businesses and resulted in many people spending more time at home. In 2021 and 2022, most people returned to work, as evidenced by location tracking of cell phones. This paper describes analysis of monthly residential electricity consumption at the county level for California from 2017 to 2022. Results show that residential electricity consumption increased in 2020 and did not return to 2019 levels in either 2021 or 2022. Since hot weather is the primary driver of change in monthly residential electricity use in California, the dependence of residential electricity use on cooling degree days was analyzed. Warmer weather does not explain the increase. Results show that both non-cooling (“baseline”) electricity use increased, perhaps due to new equipment in homes, and that hot weather electricity use also increased compared to historical years. Both effects were observed for the service territories of most utilities in California to varying degrees. Future research will examine possible explanations, including conversion of existing or new floorspace in homes into office space, additional equipment (air cleaners, office equipment), and behavioral changes (hours of use, temperature set-points).