Photovoltaic rooftop's contribution to improve building-level energy resilience during COVID-19 work-from-home arrangement

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced opportunities for more research in resilience as globally cities experienced lock-down, causing change to conventional energy consumption pattern especially in the residential sector. This study aims to quantify the increased energy demand during work-from-home arrangement, using high-rise public residential buildings in Hong Kong, where its government announced work-from-home arrangement four times in 2020. Building energy modellings were conducted to compare the total energy demand of residential units during normal and work-from-home arrangements, followed by validation against peer models and empirical data. A 9% residential energy demand increase was demonstrated, hence additional energy supply became desirable for the sake of resilience. This study assesses the possibility to leverage photovoltaic rooftop to supplement the increased energy demand. The photovoltaics' potential contribution was estimated by solar energy simulation and evaluated in terms of the capability to utilize its generation output to supplement the additional energy demand. During the four work-from-home periods, it was shown that a photovoltaic system could have supplemented 6.8% -11% of the increased energy demand, mainly subject to the air-conditioning operation and solar generation. These findings are valuable to safeguard energy resilience in upcoming grid planning and operation.(c) 2022 International Energy Initiative. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the energy demand during work-from-home arrangements by 9%, necessitating the exploration of additional energy supply for resilience. This study evaluates the potential of utilizing photovoltaic rooftops to supplement the increased energy demand and finds that a photovoltaic system could meet 6.8%-11% of the additional energy demand, mainly depending on air-conditioning operation and solar generation. These findings are crucial for ensuring energy resilience in future grid planning and operation.