Working From Home Is Driving Up Our Energy Costs. Should Employers Foot the Bill?

  • Date: 27-Feb-2021
  • Source: Time
  • Sector:Economy
  • Country:Middle East
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Working From Home Is Driving Up Our Energy Costs. Should Employers Foot the Bill?

If you're one of the estimated 4.7 million Americans who shifted to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, you may have noticed an unexpected spike in your energy costs as you spend more time consuming power at home, rather than at the office. Prior to the pandemic, U.S. residential energy use was pretty predictable: electricity usage spiked as people woke up, decreased during working hours, and then rose again in the evening. Now, with many working remotely, residential energy usage rises later in the morning, but remains more consistent throughout the day. In a June 2020 report, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a government statistics organization, estimated that residential energy use would rise by 20% over the second half of 2020, while industrial use would drop by 12%.











The result? "There have been some really significant increases in residential bills,“ says Steve Cicala, an assistant professor of economics at Tufts University and a researcher at the National Bureau of Economic Research. "You can literally see from the amount of residential electricity being consumed from hour to hour of the week, that people are stuck at home.“



The largest increase in pandemic-era residential energy use