Assessing the impact of lockdown due to COVID-19 on the electricity consumption of a housing development in the UK

Tubelo, Renata; Naghiyev, Eldar; Gillot, Mark; Rodrigues, Lucelia; Shipman, Rob

Abstract

In March 2020, the United Kingdom (UK) government ruled that householders must stay home as a response to the COVID-19 outbreak to help flatten the curve of the epidemic and reduce the exponential growth of the virus. Commercial activities, workplaces and schools were obliged to temporarily close in compliance with the government rules. This first and most restrictive lockdown took place from late March to early May 2020 when occupants had to stay in their homes except for very restricted essential activities. Two other lockdowns were introduced in November 2020 and January 2021, alongside with a range of restrictive measures during 2020. This offered an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the impact of a prolonged period of occupancy on household electricity consumption. In this work, the authors compared electricity consumption data collected from 21 energy-efficient houses in Nottingham, UK, during these lockdown periods to the same period in previous year. The findings indicated that the monthly electricity consumption in April 2020, during the strictest lockdown, increased approximately 5% in comparison to the same period in 2019. The daily electricity consumption profile during this lockdown showed earlier and longer peaks in the evenings with the emergence of a new midday peak in comparison to typical daily peaks prior to lockdown. The findings supported the idea that electricity consumption is increased as a result of the proportion of time residents spend in their homes and this corresponded to 17% more in 2020-2021, when restrictive measures were in place.

Citation

Tubelo, R., Naghiyev, E., Gillot, M., Rodrigues, L., & Shipman, R. (2021). Assessing the impact of lockdown due to COVID-19 on the electricity consumption of a housing development in the UK. In J. R. Littlewood, R. J. Howlett, & L. C. Jain (Eds.), Sustainability in Energy and Buildings 2021 (45-55). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6269-0_4

• Online Publication Date: Sep 29, 2021
• Publication Date: Sep 28, 2021
• Deposit Date: Jul 12, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 29, 2022
• Publisher: Springer
• Pages: 45-55
• Series Title: Smart innovation, systems and technologies
• Series Number: 263
• Series ISSN: 2190-3018
• Book Title: Sustainability in Energy and Buildings 2021
• ISBN: 9789811662683
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6269-0_4
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5780860
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-16-6269-0_4
• Related Public URLs: http://seb-21.kesinternational.org/
• Contract Date: May 10, 2021