Changes in hourly electricity consumption under COVID mandates: A glance to future hourly residential power consumption pattern with remote work in Arizona

The transition to remote work brings uncertainty to the future power consumption pattern. The COVID mandates in 2020 have accelerated the transition to remote work, generating major uncertainty regarding how residential power consumption patterns will shift. Understanding these shifts is vital for regional operators who will need to implement long-term planning strategies if companies continue to adopt remote work practices. Additionally, if new COVID variants prompt extended stay-at-home mandates, the resulting behavior shifts will decide the optimal combination of power generation in a region. Our study examines changes in hourly residential power consumption patterns resulting from COVID mandates in Arizona. We estimate how the COVID mandates and subsequent remote work practices could change the power consumption patterns using individual-consumerlevel hourly power consumption data for 6,309 consumers and a machine learning framework. We also simulate how the hourly power consumption pattern will change with increasing penetration of remote work under winter and summer temperature settings. We then use our simulations to test the policy effectiveness of changing time-of-use (TOU) rates. Our results show that COVID mandates likely increase the power consumption in the afternoon by 13%, and can change the power consumption pattern in winter from a two-peaked shape to a onepeaked shape. Furthermore, we show that the residents' income, race, and house size are significantly correlated with the changes in power consumption, and the correlation is not linear. We find that, by increasing the peak hour prices and decreasing the off-peak hour prices by 10% of the TOU pricing, the peak electricity demand could be reduced by 10%. Our results show under the new remote work era: (1) the need for modifying previous energy generation combination planning due to changing peak demand hours; (2) equity concerns regarding TOU pricing and the inability of vulnerable groups to shift electricity consumption; (3) the ability of governments and utilities to lower the maximum load of power consumption by modifying the TOU rates.

Automated summary

The transition to remote work has led to changes in residential power consumption patterns, requiring long-term planning and policy adjustments. The study shows that COVID mandates increase afternoon power consumption and change the winter power consumption pattern. Additionally, residents' income, race, and house size are correlated with power consumption changes. By adjusting time-of-use rates, peak electricity demand can be reduced.