![]() In this paper, we analyzed how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the energy load profiles in residential homes, using Reynolds Landing to make potential recommendations to utilities for handling peak load and demand response. Grid-interactive, efficient buildings in Reynolds Landing consume less energy than standard homes and can reduce peak power usage, with almost a 34% reduction in peak winter heating electricity demand compared with standards homes. During the pandemic, smart community homes with energy-efficient appliances and Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure enable detailed analysis of device-level energy usage, which can provide more energy savings and capture human behavioral and lifestyle changes.īecause residential and commercial buildings account for nearly 73% of the nation’s total electricity consumption, grid-interactive, efficient buildings can contribute to significant energy and peak demand savings. All 62 homes within Reynolds Landing signed a continuous data-sharing agreement for 2 years, and 39 of these customers signed up to continue data collection and control for another year. ![]() Alabama Power Smart Neighborhood homes, also known as Reynolds Landing, managed by Southern Company is a classic example of grid-interactive, efficient buildings. The US Department of Energy heavily invests in research in connected communities, where a group of grid-interactive, efficient buildings and other distributed energy resources work together to maximize building and grid efficiency. These studies have shown that because of COVID-19 lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, energy use in residential homes has drastically increased, shifting energy peaks in the morning and evening and changing the shape of electrical loads. ![]() Researchers have studied how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the energy use of residential homes, ,. This sudden shift toward working from home and virtual schooling has led to significant changes in energy consumption patterns within both residential and commercial sectors. The stay-at-home mandates extended into May 2020 and later for some states. ![]() In March 2020, most US states officially ordered most residents to stay at home, with exceptions for essential workers or under specific circumstances, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. HVAC and water heating remain the largest consumers of electricity in residential homes, and our findings indicate an even further increase in energy use by these systems. We also compare energy use of the Smart Neighborhood with a traditional neighborhood to better understand how energy-efficient/smart devices can provide energy savings, especially because of increased work-from-home situations. The weekend usage patterns look similar pre– and post–COVID-19 pandemic, but weekday patterns show significant changes. This paper highlights the energy usage pattern changes between weekdays and weekends pre– and post–COVID-19 pandemic times. Our analysis incorporates data from before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, from an Alabama Power Smart Neighborhood with energy-efficient/smart devices, using around 40 advanced metering infrastructure data points. In this paper, we quantify the changes and perform a detailed analysis on how the load shapes have changed, and we make potential recommendations for utilities to handle peak load and demand response. Therefore, the shape of electrical loads associated with residential buildings has also changed. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected people’s behavioral patterns and schedules because of stay-at-home orders and a reduction of social interactions.
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