Energy Consumption in Commercial Buildings in a Post-COVID-19 World

The ripple effects of the pandemic have resulted in an unprecedented shift in sectoral energy consumption as the workforce predominantly stays and works from home. Quantifying the impact of these restrictions on energy consumption offers a new direction toward intelligent energy services in a post-coronavirus (post-COVID-19) world, especially for commercial buildings. Thus, utilizing actual power consumption data, the study evaluates how energy usage in commercial buildings can change in a post-COVID-19 world, while examining the impact of digitalization to identify potential new opportunities. The article analyzes the changes in energy demand with occupancy rate based on data from 126 commercial businesses with varied classes across Manchester, U.K. The results show that the reduction in energy demand is not proportionate to the occupancy level, resulting in high energy costs. For instance, an average footfall for February 2021 is 10% of 2020, while the costs of electricity only fall to 80% of 2020. Although most of the energy demand is from appliances, the absence of energy efficiency increases energy consumption, highlighting the urgent need for optimized energy efficiency measures to include the time of use and scheduled use of energy across people and processes.