Quantifying the impact of Covid-19 on the energy consumption in the low-income housing in Greater London

Abstract

Covid-19 has caused great challenges to the energy sector, particularly in residential buildings with low-income households. This study investigates the impact of the confinement measures due to the Covid-19 outbreak on the energy demand of seven residential archetype buildings in Greater London. Three levels of confinement for occupant schedules are proposed and compared with the base case before Covid-19. The archetypes, their boundary conditions, and input parameters are set up according to statistics from English Housing Survey (EHS) sample data for low-income housing. The base case scenario (normal life without confinement measures) is validated against the measured data energy consumption from the National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework (NEED) statistics. The results show that electricity consumption is significantly lower than that for heating and hot water for all the archetypes. By comparing the base case scenario with the full Covid-19 lockdown scenario, the results indicate that heating and hot water consumption (kWh) for all the residential archetypes increases, on average, by 10%, and total electricity demand (kWh) increases by 13%. The study highlights the importance of introducing detailed occupancy profiles in multi-zone building energy simulation models during a pandemic that leads to a greater shift towards home working, which may increase the risk of fuel poverty in low-income housing.