Coronavirus: Electricity use up during day as nation works from home

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52331534

by Zenst • 6 years ago

3 1 6 years ago

bbc.co.uk

Zenst• 6 years ago

However usage overall for the day is down around 20%: "But overall, the country is actually using less energy because of businesses being closed. The National Grid reports that morning and afternoon electricity demand is down by nearly 20%."

Given there will be more people at home, watching more TV, playing more consoles and other electrical usaing appliances, maybe washing clothes more frequently... So I'm not sure that attributing all those working at home for the lunchtime spike is fair. After all - people are kinda stuck indoors - compared to lunchtime when people would normaly be out and about not using electricity as much. So all those adults who would be on a lunchbreak, children who even at school would be on a lunchbreak - all suddenly stuck indoors. I'd say that aspect would spike that period of usage way more.

As for the drop, well the question of is working from home more enviromentaly freindly and is it lower in electric usage compared to a big office. Probably.

But the real usage that makes a big dent would be large industry and with much of that shut down, then the real drop I'd expect would be from that area.

Though I'm sure much will be learned mining thru the data and learning so much after all this. Certainly see home working more acceptable and may be the case that companies are forced to make provisions by law under some government emergency planning edict down the line that it will be viewed over time in much the same way we have to have fire doors today.

What would be interesting would be had this been winter time and the impact of extra home heating during the day for many. That may well of been higher compared to centralised offices, schools etc. Though would be nice to know, I hope things don't go on long enough so we find that one out.

Coronavirus: Electricity use up during day as nation works from home

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