PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — This sounds about right.
During the pandemic we used more energy while at home, part of that time spent in isolation, and less energy in office buildings as work from home became the norm for many in 2020.
PECO shared with KYW Newsradio exactly what those energy use trends were.
"It wasn't a surprise to us when we took a look at the data and found that our residential load was higher,” said PECO’s Vice President of Technical Services Steven Singh.
“It was about 5% higher."
As he put it, "every day’s a weekend now” when it comes to energy use this last year.
"When we think about Monday through Friday now,” he elaborated, “in the middle of the pandemic, it very much matches what we have traditionally seen on weekends."
That includes the hour-by-hour usage.
“Pre-pandemic, we would see loads really start increasing as people came home from work, so sometime around that 4 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m. time frame,” explained Singh.
“In the summer, you’d see people come home and the air conditioning is clicked on, so we used to see spikes around those times, but now we see it much more leveled throughout the day.”
Then there is the commercial energy use, which Singh said was lower during the pandemic.
"Not surprisingly,” he added, “because a lot of the commercial businesses as we navigated COVID-19 were not operating as highly as they used to be, we saw a 7% decrease."
While the 5% increase for residential use was about where he expected it to be, the commercial use came as a bit of a surprise.
"Last year, when many things were really starting to halt and people weren't operating as much, I would have probably expected that to be lower,” he admitted.
We now know that Pennsylvania is lifting most restrictions on Memorial Day. Because of that, Singh expects the energy numbers to return continue returning to normal.
"We do expect the movement to be more towards what it was pre-pandemic,” he said.
“With that being said, we're planning on that. We plan on that every year. We look at our peak loads of the previous years and we design our systems and build projects to withstand all that."
PECO has the 2019 numbers to rely on, as 2020 was an all-around odd year.
Singh said they’ll be ready for whatever the pandemic throws at them, whether it’s restrictions being lifted or another setback.