Residential up. Business down. What gives?
But does air conditioning and fan use during a heatwave cause an unsustainable spike, with so many people at home?
And how do outages work with reliance on electricity for the virtual office? We’re certainly looking like a third world country, but only with bigger TVs.
Social unrest, police oppression, uncertain elections, and now power outages.
What does it take to motivate the institutional systems that sustain us to function properly together?
They are like Russian nesting dolls of complex dependencies, not a single one coordinating with another.
Is it too much to ask that virtual offices have dependable power or that a summer’s worth of electricity doesn’t burn us to the ground?
Apparently.
Like citizens in a third world nation, our role is to sit here and suck it up, unless we find our way to advocacy.
Advocacy is looking like a pretty good option, these days.
Beats sitting in the dark with a computer as a paperweight, hoping the hills don’t catch fire…waiting for a mail-in ballot.
“See how covid-19 is reshaping the electric rhythms of New York City,” The Washington Post,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/19/electricity-new-york/
“Covid-19 impact on electricity,” IEA,
https://www.iea.org/reports/covid-19-impact-on-electricity
“These 3 charts show what COVID-19 has done to global energy demand,”
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/08/covid19-change-energy-electricity-use-lockdowns-falling-demand/
“Sense Data Shows That Home Energy Demand Increased 22% Since Covid-19, Driving up Utility Bills, and Most People Decided to Stay Home Before Government Mandates,” CISION, PR Newswire,
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sense-data-shows-that-home-energy-demand-increased-22-since-covid-19-driving-up-utility-bills-and-most-people-decided-to-stay-home-before-government-mandates-301062944.html