Electricity consumption reveals proactive community response to spread of COVID-19 – India Education | Latest Education News | Global educational news

Successful mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic requires massive behavior change in individuals across the world. For policy makers to assess the success of public health interventions, the ability to accurately and quickly assess a population’s response is imperative.

A new study by two researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) postulates the use of residential electricity consumption data as an accurate measure of community response during unprecedented and disruptive events, such as ‘a pandemic. In this context, by following the evolution of household electricity demand over a given period, the researchers were able to analyze the links between community behavior and information on the progression of the pandemic as it unfolded. as it became accessible to the public.

The study found a strong positive correlation between peak household consumption, particularly at night, and new cases of COVID-19 reported in Singapore. This suggests that the local community reacted proactively during the early stages of the pandemic by choosing to stay, where possible. Voluntary steps were taken to protect themselves, even before a government-mandated lockdown.

“Our team regularly analyzes data on domestic electricity consumption, collected using smart energy meters. We wanted to apply this area of ​​expertise to study the pandemic response, as we believe it can help decision makers assess people’s willingness to adopt risk reduction behaviors, to design effective updates to the pandemic. public health, ”said Assistant Professor Jimmy Peng of the NUS Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who oversaw the research.

The study was first published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences August 24, 2021.

Electricity consumption as a precise indicator of the behavior of the population

Among the most common indicators used to study changes in social behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic are population surveys and anonymized data from mobile phones, including geolocation and contact tracing data collected through dedicated applications. .

Electricity consumption, on the other hand, is measured objectively using smart energy meters, made available to decision-makers in real time, and not self-reported by users, which represents greater precision. The data is also more democratic, since every household, regardless of its demographics, has electricity meters.

Electricity consumption data can be objectively measured over a large population and is considerably more democratic, since every household, regardless of demographics, has electricity meters.

With this in mind, the NUS team collected electricity consumption data for 10,246 households in the city-state from January to May 2020, across a range of income brackets and housing, from one-room apartments to bungalows.

Knowing that Singapore’s residential electricity consumption in a typical non-pandemic environment would be primarily influenced by weather conditions and rising temperatures, the researchers’ analysis did not focus on the magnitude of the increase. Instead, they looked at how much of the increase could be explained or attributed to news of the progression of COVID-19 as opposed to common weather factors.

To do this, the team built a vector error correction model (VECM) to capture and account for COVID-19 data and weather parameters as possible factors that could influence household electricity consumption. Specifically, they looked at the maximum value of aggregate residential consumption from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. This allowed the team to determine to what extent the change in each of the influencing factors resulted in a change in the latter. In other words, the study could highlight the relative influence of different factors on electricity consumption.

The VECM was formed for the period January 23, 2020 to April 7, 2020, just before the Singapore government implemented the circuit breaker (or lockout period). In a word:

• Before lockdown: Weather conditions and new COVID-19 cases explained 3.2% and 93% of changes in peak power consumption, respectively
• During lockdown: Weather conditions and new COVID-19 cases explained 29.6% and 3.3%, respectively, of changes in peak electricity consumption

The results confirmed that although the progression of COVID-19 and weather conditions influenced electricity consumption, the most important factor was daily new cases of COVID-19 – contributing over 93% of the variance – while time played a relatively minor influencing role.

Importance of results and applications for decision makers

The results of this study demonstrated that while the government did not put in place mobility restrictions before the circuit breaker, Singaporeans have reacted proactively to the growing number of new reported cases of COVID-19. In particular, the increase in electricity use suggested that people stayed indoors more often or performed more activities at home rather than outside during the evenings.

“Depending on the local context, our study suggests that authorities have indeed been effective in persuading the community of the seriousness of the disease and the need to make immediate behavior and lifestyle changes to cope with it,” explained Dr Gururaghav Raman, researcher at NUS Electrical and Computer Engineering, and co-author of the article.

The NUS team hopes that residential electricity consumption data will provide governments in Singapore and beyond with a useful tool and indicator that can capture people’s behaviors accurately and dynamically, especially in times of crisis. In doing so, national mandates can be better tailored, with interventions targeted to communities most in need.

“For example, if we could identify specific demographics that are not able to reduce mobility, then these communities could be specifically supported by the immunization program or prioritized,” explained Assistant Professor Peng. “We thank the Energy Market Authority Singapore and the SP Group for providing us with this data, as well as the National Research Foundation Singapore for funding this research through the Future Resilient Systems program. As this study shows, these numbers are available to us in real time and are representative of all demographics. This can be very useful for policy makers to adapt public health measures in uncertain and unfamiliar terrain. “