Aug. 11, 2021
In the early afternoon of March 19, 2020, as the threat of COVID-19 was rapidly spreading throughout California, Governor Gavin Newsom issued a mandatory and immediate stay-at-home order for everyone except essential workers.
Millions of Californians left their workplaces and classrooms, shuttered their businesses, and went home.
At Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the largest municipal utility in the United States, the unprecedented shift in potential energy needs raised immediate questions. What impact would COVID-19 have on energy usage, and how would the pandemic affect their four million customers?
The California Plug Load Research Center (CalPlug) has collaborated with LADWP on energy issues since 2012.
When COVID-19 hit, CalPlug joined forces with LADWP’s Efficiency Solutions Engineering (ESE) group and DWP La Kretz Lab’s to analyze how energy-use had been affected by the changes in life and workstyles brought on by this once-in-a-lifetime event.
The research team used 2020 energy data from LADWP during the pandemic and compared it to data from previous years to evaluate the impact of the pandemic on the utility company’s service territory. Effects were analyzed for multiple neighborhoods across the city, each representing about 2,000 customers.
“We had to explore our options to find out what are the impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic on our infrastructure –such as transmission lines and transformers — as well as the billing impacts on our customers while they are using more energy during the day. As a result, we decided to use our valuable partnership with CalPlug and reached out to Dr. GP Li and his team for their research into potential solutions and directions for educating our staff, customers, and utilities throughout the country,” says Amir Tabakh, Chief of Energy Solutions Engineering at LADWP.
The analysis began by understanding changes in behaviors during this period. In mid-March through April, as shelter-in-place orders where issued, about 25 percent more Los Angeles residents stayed at home compared to pre-pandemic numbers.
By early April, visits to L.A. grocery stores and pharmacies had dropped substantially, but trips to retail stores, parks, recreation areas and transit stations dropped even more.
These changes were the most extreme in March and April. By June, visits to groceries and pharmacies had rebounded significantly, but time spent at workplaces, stores, and parks remained 30 to 40 percent lower than average.
“Behavior data showed massive shifts in how many people were unemployed or working at home, especially in March and April,” says CalPlug’s Research Director, Dr. Joy Pixley. “More time at home means more use of computers, TVs, appliances, and lighting, as well as heating and cooling.”
“Occupancy is a major driver of energy use” says CalPlug’s Technical Director, Dr. Michael Klopfer. ““Energy information provides an interesting snapshot into how the schedules of people changed”.
Results showed that residential energy usage noticeably shifted, especially during the early part of the pandemic. Decreased energy use in the morning reflects people starting the morning more slowly on weekdays. Similarly, the mid-afternoon shows increased energy use corresponding to more use of appliances and air conditioning or heating when many people would normally be at work or school. Remote work continuing past the COVID-19 pandemic will likely have a similar effect, if for a smaller group.
The difference was lower for weekends during the daytime. However, weekend averages showed higher late night and early morning energy usage. This suggests a shift to late night leisure activities for people no longer constrained by standard daytime work hours. It may also reflect people who would normally be working late nights in entertainment venues who were instead at home.
By September and October, the impact due to more people being at home during the day had lessened but had not been eliminated.
The heat events during early fall 2020 had exceptionally high impact, because more people were home to require air conditioning, adding to the energy burden.
“The good news is that average energy increases for most neighborhoods were small,” says Dr. Pixley. “But we know those averages include some households that were harder hit. So we looked at what other studies told us about who was most affected in terms of increased energy bills.”
The results showed that compared to higher-income Angelenos, those with lower incomes were more likely to lose their jobs during the pandemic and less likely to be able to work from home. This unequal impact is especially problematic because disadvantaged households already pay a higher proportion of their income on energy.
To help support these households, LADWP is not charging late fees or shutting off water or power for nonpayment during the crisis, and it offers financing and discounts for qualifying customers.
COVID-19 also allowed researchers to gain insights into how buildings can be idled more effectively. “One set of commercial buildings investigated did not show a substantial decrease in after-hours energy use even when the majority of building tenants were not allowed inside,” says Klopfer. “Commercial buildings act almost like sensors to let us get a better understanding of space usage and change because of the pandemic.”
Pixley adds, “The patterns suggest that computers and other devices were left on even with low or no occupancy. This is a wake-up call for improving energy efficiency in commercial buildings.”
“The data-driven results of this CalPlug research not only shed light on customer behavioral changes in energy usage consumption patterns but also helped identify otherwise unexpected hardship situations where the needs of some of our customers were addressed more equitably. As this partnership with CalPlug continues to advance, we look forward to developing further opportunities for additional, more specific, project-based collaborations like our current work on COVID-19 and energy use in disadvantaged communities,” says David Jacot, Director of Efficiency Solutions at LADWP
During 2020 there was a boom in clean energy production and use as renewables covered for fossil fuel energy sources. But there is a dark side as well to these shifts in usage, explains Dr. Klopfer.
“California’s energy grid is very lean and relies on a careful balance of expected supply and expected demand: when forecasts are off, widespread energy supply problems can result. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on normal energy use combined with extreme weather conditions were a major contributing factor to the fall 2020 California rolling blackouts.“
The lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic on energy use can help improve the resiliency of our grid and help improve energy security to the most vulnerable in our society as well as helping to reduce the carbon footprint of the energy that powers our lives.
The future collaboration in emerging technologies between CalPlug and LADWP is aimed toward improving how energy loads can be better scheduled to align with clean energy availability. This work requires integrating three key elements: developing technology solutions, evaluating effective utility program design, and researching human behavior and how it can adapt to new circumstances, particularly the challenges of climate change, Pixley says. “These are essential steps on the technical journey for achieving zero greenhouse gas emissions.”
– Sharon Henry
