Two years after Covid-19 first hit, the city that never sleeps is back to waking up early

We used the previously published MFRED dataset, which tracks real and reactive power in 390 apartments in Manhattan.

To study the effect of Covid-19 on electricity consumption, we analyzed the weekday diurnals between April 1^st and 28^th in 2019 (as a baseline before Covid), 2020 (right after lockdown started in Manhattan), 2021, and 2022. April (shoulder season) was chosen to minimize any effects of varying weather on electricity use.

Of the 390 apartments, we removed those deemed vacant based on their average load (9% of apartments, 15%, 12%, and 9% for 2019-2022, respectively).

At 10pm, we observed a systematic drop in load from 2019 to 2022 of on average 17 Watt per year (3.7% of baseline), consistent with an expected downward trend from switching from, e.g., incandescent to LED lights.

After normalizing for this trend, total consumption in April was up by 11% vs. baseline in 2020, 9% in 2021, and still elevated by 7% in 2022.

Loads at 12pm were up 26%, 24%, and 12% for 2020-2022 respectively, indicating a sustained trend for increased work from home even 2 years after Covid first hit.

Consistent with increased work from home, a steady decrease of 2.3 degrees per year in the phase angle at 4am (when loads from electronics in stand-by mode are most prominent) also indicates the increased contribution of computers, Wifi routers, etc. to the overall load.

However, while morning load ramp-up was at 7am in 2019, a full hour later at 8am in 2020 and at 7.30am in 2021, in 2022 this ramp-up had reverted back to 7am, as observed in 2019.