The uneven energy costs of working from home

People also started using electricity during different times of the day, the researchers found.

Historically, residential electricity use has peaked in the morning and evening, when people get ready for work and school, and when they come home and settle in for the night. Plotted on a graph, those two peaks in electricity use create a shape that’s sometimes called the “.” But with people spending more time at home, the camel’s humps flattened — reshaping the demand curve into one with more of a prolonged peak throughout the middle of the day.

That’s important to know because the stability of our power grid depends on a precarious balance between energy supply and demand. To keep energy use from overwhelming the grid, some utilities offer plans with “” that make it cheaper to use electricity during times of low demand and more expensive during times of high demand. In Arizona, for example, residents included in the study who were on time-of-use plans were subject to those higher rates between 2 and 8PM.

Unfortunately, home solar is still a luxury purchase in most cases. “[Solar panel] installation is still expensive right now. It might benefit those high-income people instead of low-income people,” says Jiehong Lou, an assistant research professor at the University of Maryland and the lead author of one of the studies she co-authored with Nock.

Ah yes, my energy bill is higher, partly because I work from home, but this rise is nothing compared to the cost of commuting into the office. I’m saving both time and money by working remotely.

Socialize utilities. Socialize medicine. Keep socializing.

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