Skip to main content

New top story from Time: Working From Home Is Driving Up Our Energy Costs. Should Employers Foot the Bill?

https://ift.tt/2ZSLv6H

If you’re one of the estimated 4.7 million Americans who shifted to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, you may have noticed an unexpected spike in your energy costs as you spend more time consuming power at home, rather than at the office. Prior to the pandemic, U.S. residential energy use was pretty predictable: electricity usage spiked as people woke up, decreased during working hours, and then rose again in the evening. Now, with many working remotely, residential energy usage rises later in the morning, but remains more consistent throughout the day. In a June 2020 report, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a government statistics organization, estimated that residential energy use would rise by 20% over the second half of 2020, while industrial use would drop by 12%.

The result? “There have been some really significant increases in residential bills,” says Steve Cicala, an assistant professor of economics at Tufts University and a researcher at the National Bureau of Economic Research. “You can literally see from the amount of residential electricity being consumed from hour to hour of the week, that people are stuck at home.”

The largest increase in pandemic-era residential energy use came over the summer of last year, when remote workers were running their air conditioning to stay cool. “The total over that four-month period was $6 billion extra in residential electricity expenditures,” says Cicala. His October 2020 report on pandemic energy use, based on data from smart meters, found that industrial and commercial energy use dropped by about 15%, while residential energy consumption rose by 10%. On average, remote workers have seen a $40-50 monthly increase in their energy costs, according to Cicala’s research—or as much as $600 a year.

That shift in energy consumption has led some to argue that employers should subsidize their remote workers’ home energy bills. It’s hard to find fault with that argument. “When you were working in the actual office building, they’re responsible for taking care of the heat bills and the water bills,” says Rachael Kohl, a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School. “They’re responsible for paying for…all these other supplies that you need there. So by moving people…home and closing down some of the physical locations of these offices, those expenses do get shifted to the employee.”

Cicala points out that while wealthier remote employees may be able to absorb the extra costs without much issue, they could be more of an issue for workers living paycheck to paycheck. And while there’s no available data on remote working energy use broken down by race, Cicala says Black and Hispanic families have struggled the most with paying their power bills overall throughout the pandemic—for example, up to 3% of Illinois residents in predominantly Black and Hispanic communities had their power disconnected for nonpayment compared to 1% of residents in other communities, according to data from ComEd and Ameren, the state’s largest electric utilities.

“When we talk about an overall increase in economic stress, you take that and recognize that it was already four times higher in black and Hispanic communities,” says Cicala. “It’s really disturbing levels of economic distress in these communities.”

No major companies have begun subsidizing remote workers’ energy costs, according to TIME’s research. In part, that may be because even today’s smart meters can’t track energy use by device, making it hard to know exactly how much to refund workers (though offering a lump sum based on increased year-over-year costs could solve that issue). Furthermore, many businesses are also struggling in the pandemic, and corporate leaders may not want to add another extra cost. And of course, people who work from home may be spending less on transportation, tolls and other commute-related expenses, potentially offsetting their increased energy costs.

Some companies are at least offering employees help in switching their residential power to renewable energy sources. Biotechnology company Biogen and financial giant Goldman Sachs, for example, are both working with alternative energy firm Arcadia to help employees switch their homes to wind or solar power. Alexa Minerva, Arcadia’s senior director of partnerships, says the offering is just one of many new kinds of employee benefits that may arise as work becomes more geographically flexible in the pandemic era and beyond, and perks like an office cafeteria become less of a draw. “It says something not just about…how you value a person, but it also says what you value as a company,” says Minerva. “It’s a great hiring strategy and retention tactic.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bihar: Stages collapse during Congress rallies in Darbhanga, West Champaran https://ift.tt/37QFnks

The stage on which Congress candidate from Jale assembly seat, Mashkoor Ahmad Usman was addressing a rally broke and collapsed in Bihar's Darbhanga on Thursday. In a similar incident, another stage collapsed and took down party leaders Imran Pratapgarhi and Akhilesh Singh along with several party workers who were on the dias, during a Congress rally at Bagahi Deoraj in Champaran.

New Dashboards Give a Window into Muni Service Changes

New Dashboards Give a Window into Muni Service Changes By Kate McCarthy An inspector manages Muni service. New dashboards that help inform changes to Muni service are now live at SFMTA.com/MuniData Many factors inform our decisions about Muni service adjustments. These include making sure changes to service support the SFMTA’s values, which are economic vitality, environmental stewardship, trust and equity. We also evaluate travel patterns. You can now explore these patterns using the new Muni data dashboards  (SFMTA.com/MuniData). When looking at possible Muni service changes, the first thing we do is turn to the Muni Service Equity Strategy for guidance. Using the Muni Service Equity Strategy, we prioritize providing Muni service along routes that more often serve people of color, members of low-income households, and/or those who are dependent upon transit service, including people with disabilities and seniors. We also use ridership data to analyze where riders are boa...

India reports first 6 cases of new coronavirus strain after UK returnees test positive https://ift.tt/3pA0T2j

India on Tuesday reported the first six cases of the new coronavirus strain after six people who had returned from the United Kingdom were tested positive for the new UK variant genome. According to the details, the new coronavirus strain cases were reported from Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore. Samples of 3 UK returnees were tested and found positive for the new UK strain in NIMHANS, Bengaluru. The other two cases were tested at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad; while the last case was tested at the National Institute of Virology, Pune.

FOX NEWS: Ohio amusement park shut down after multiple fights break out Kings Island in Mason, around 20 miles north of Cincinnati, closed down 30 minutes early Saturday night after several fights among teenagers occurred, reports suggest.

Ohio amusement park shut down after multiple fights break out Kings Island in Mason, around 20 miles north of Cincinnati, closed down 30 minutes early Saturday night after several fights among teenagers occurred, reports suggest. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3wsn8uI

PM Modi lauds IFS officers for their work towards serving nation, furthering national interests https://ift.tt/36HoEzw

Greeting Indian Foreign Service officers on IFS day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that their work towards serving the nation and furthering national interests globally are commendable. Their efforts during the Vande Bharat Mission, which was launched to bring Indians home from abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic as international travel came to a halt, and other related help to our citizens and other nations is noteworthy, Modi added.

FOX NEWS: Bride's father asks stepdad to help walk her down the aisle in sweet viral moment A selfless gesture by the father of a bride was shared on social media in a viral moment of him surprising the girl’s stepfather by asking him to help walk her to the altar.

Bride's father asks stepdad to help walk her down the aisle in sweet viral moment A selfless gesture by the father of a bride was shared on social media in a viral moment of him surprising the girl’s stepfather by asking him to help walk her to the altar. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/ZkQ1Rpt

Better Connections from Bayview and Hunters Point to Downtown

Better Connections from Bayview and Hunters Point to Downtown By Enrique Aguilar To better connect southeast San Franciscans with downtown, the SFMTA debuted the 15 Bayview Hunters-Point Express in late January, coinciding with the return of T Third train service. Within weeks, average daily boardings reached 1,000 customers on this new service. The 15 Bayview Hunters Point Express  We added this route based on community feedback from the Southeast Muni Expansion Project in 2018, which prioritized a more direct trip to downtown from the Bayview. With the sudden rise of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disproportionate impacts on communities in the Bayview and Hunters Point, fast-tracking the project became critical to our transit planning. Adding service capacity and a direct connection between these neighborhoods and downtown is a crucial step in supporting the City’s economic recovery and increasing job access for essential workers using transit. Using data from the SFMTA Equ...

Plan Your Next Golden Gate Park Trip with Muni

Plan Your Next Golden Gate Park Trip with Muni By Eillie Anzilotti   A map of San Francisco showing Muni lines that offer direct service to Golden Gate Park, including: The 18 46th Avenue, the 29 Sunset, the 5 Fulton and 5R Fulton Rapid, the N Judah, the 44 O’Shaughnessy, the 33 Ashbury/18th Street, the 7 Haight/Noriega, the 43 Masonic and the 28 19th Avenue. Around each bus route shown on the map, a red zone shows the range within 1,000 feet of a stop, orange shows within 2,000 feet of a stop, and yellow shows within 3,000 feet. Here’s a fun fact: 70% of San Franciscans are within a 15-minute walk of a transfer-free Muni ride to the largest public space in our city: Golden Gate Park.   Especially as COVID-19 has heightened the importance of outdoor recreation and park access, SFMTA has made efforts to update Muni service to get people to Golden Gate Park. As of now, ...

New top story from Time: ‘I Should Be Presumed Innocent.’ Hong Kong Media Tycoon Jimmy Lai Criticizes His Arrest

https://ift.tt/342b8VJ Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai said he was arrested on “trumped up” charges, pushing back against landmark national security legislation that has raised questions about press freedoms and the future of the democracy movement. “They’re trumped up. I can’t go further on the details,” Lai said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Friday morning. “Before any evidence, they just claimed and presumed that I’m guilty. This isn’t the way the law is. I should be presumed innocent. We have never supported the independence of Hong Kong.” He said Hong Kong’s future as Asia’s main financial hub was uncertain if there was no respect for the rule of law under the new security measures. “The future of Hong Kong is the future of any other Chinese city,” he added. “Without the rule of law, the international financial center will be finished.” He added that the law sent a “very negative” message to the business community in Hong Kong and overseas. Lai has ...

अगर मैंने आत्महत्या की तो लोगों को पता होना चाहिए किसकी वजह से की - फूटकर रोते दिखे विकास गुप्ता

सुशांत सिंह राजपूत की आत्महत्या हर किसी को एक गहरा सदमा दे गई है और अब सुशांत के करीबी दोस्त विकास गुप्ता ने एक वीडियो में अपनी आपबीती सुनाई है। विकास इस वीडियो में बेहद टूटे हुए नज़र आ रहे हैं from टेलीविजन की खबरें | Television News in Hindi | TV Serials Update in Hindi – FilmiBeat Hindi http:/hindi.filmibeat.com/television/vikas-gupta-reveals-people-want-him-to-commit-suicide-cries-his-heart-out-for-sushant-singh-rajput-090284.html?utm_source=/rss/filmibeat-hindi-television-fb.xml&utm_medium=23.213.205.12&utm_campaign=client-rss