Open AccessElectricity consumption of Singaporean households reveals proactive community response to COVID-19 progression
Author(s) -
G. Venkat Raman,
Jimmy Chih-Hsien Peng
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.011
H-Index - 771
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2026596118
Subject(s) - pandemic , consumption (sociology) , demographics , covid-19 , psychological intervention , electricity , public health , mains electricity , business , development economics , public economics , economic growth , environmental health , economics , psychology , sociology , medicine , engineering , demography , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty) , social science , nursing , pathology , voltage , psychiatry , electrical engineering
Understanding how populations' daily behaviors change during the COVID-19 pandemic is critical to evaluating and adapting public health interventions. Here, we use residential electricity-consumption data to unravel behavioral changes within peoples' homes in this period. Based on smart energy-meter data from 10,246 households in Singapore, we find strong positive correlations between the progression of the pandemic in the city-state and the residential electricity consumption. In particular, we find that the daily new COVID-19 cases constitute the most dominant influencing factor on the electricity demand in the early stages of the pandemic, before a lockdown. However, this influence wanes once the lockdown is implemented, signifying that residents have settled into their new lifestyles under lockdown. These observations point to a proactive response from Singaporean residents-who increasingly stayed in or performed more activities at home during the evenings, despite there being no government mandates-a finding that surprisingly extends across all demographics. Overall, our study enables policymakers to close the loop by utilizing residential electricity usage as a measure of community response during unprecedented and disruptive events, such as a pandemic.