Abstract

The outbreak of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has resulted in changes in productivity and daily life patterns, and as a result electricity consumption (EC) has also shifted. In this study, we construct estimates of EC changes at the metropolitan level across the continental U.S., including total EC and residential EC during the initial two months of the pandemic. This work shows that the reduction in total EC is related to the shares of certain industries in an MSA, whereas regardless of the incidence level or economic structure, the residential sector shows a trend of increasing EC across the continental U.S.. Since the MSAs account for 86% of the total population and 87% of the total EC of the continental U.S, the analytical result in this paper can provide important guidelines for future social-economic crises.

A personal note

This study is an interdisciplinary work involving power, economy, and the emerging subject of data science. Although the intersection of different subjects might challenge the researchers, the new perspective can be inspirational.

With prosperous open-source communities, many well-documented tools significantly reduce the cost of data analysis. In addition, the constantly increased open-access database, including many authoritative data resources, boost the data availability notably. Given the enriched ore and handily spade, many subjects will have new blood.