key: cord-0902518-2n798c4o
authors: Geraldi, Matheus Soares; Bavaresco, Mateus V.; Triana, Maria Andrea; Melo, Ana Paula; Lamberts, Roberto
title: Addressing the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on energy use in municipal buildings: a case study in Florianópolis, Brazil
date: 2021-03-04
journal: Sustain Cities Soc
DOI: 10.1016/j.scs.2021.102823
sha: 2116036d1757b01907eafaf770bf2ca4e142ab06
doc_id: 902518
cord_uid: 2n798c4o

COVID-19 has spread quickly to several countries following the initial outbreak of the disease. As a consequence, several measures have been taken to mitigate the virus spread worldwide. In the city of Florianópolis, in southern Brazil, a strict lockdown was implemented on 16 March 2020. Although commercial activities were allowed to resume 21 April, a complete lockdown of municipal public buildings (e.g., administrative buildings and schools) lasted up to 5 August 2020. Reports in the literature emphasize the influence of occupant presence and actions on energy use in buildings. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the electric energy use of municipal buildings in Florianópolis. A large database with monthly electric energy use data was provided by the City Hall and analyzed. Firstly, the consumer units were grouped into three categories: systems, services and buildings. This revealed that buildings were directly affected by the lockdown measures, but systems and services were not. Therefore, an in-depth evaluation of health centers, administrative buildings, elementary schools and nursery schools was conducted and mean electric energy reductions of 11.1%, 38.6%, 50.3%, and 50.4%, respectively, were observed. Although it may initially seem unexpected, municipal health centers had a small electric energy use reduction, because they were not directly responsible for COVID-19 treatment, as patients were forwarded to specific facilities. Walkthroughs and energy audits were performed in an administrative building, an elementary school, and a nursery school, to gain a deeper understanding of the consumption trends. It was observed that municipal buildings present a basal energy use intensity even when the buildings are unoccupied. Energy audits verified that stand-by loads and vital loads, such as lighting for safety and computer servers, play a key role in this share of energy use.

The outbreak of COVID-19 was first reported in late 2019, and the disease had spread to many countries by early 2020. Considering this scenario, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on 11 March 2020 that COVID-19 should be characterized as a pandemic [1] . Several countries took measures aimed at mitigating the virus spread. Schools were closed, physical interaction between people was limited, public events were canceled and, in some places, strict lockdowns were implemented. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), such measures had a direct effect on energy demand worldwide. Up to mid-April, countries in full lockdown experienced a decline of around 25% in the weekly energy demand and those in partial lockdown experienced an average decline of 18% [2] . The IEA also highlighted that daily data collected in 30 countries up to 14 April confirmed that this reduction is related to the period and stringency of the lockdowns. Aruga et al. [3] , for instance, showed that lockdown measures directly reduced energy consumption J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f in India. The authors showed that the number of COVID-19 cases positively influenced the Indian energy consumption, i.e., the energy consumption increased as the lockdown was relaxed.

The literature highlights the impact of occupant presence and actions (OPA) on building energy use. Comprehensive efforts have been made to better understand this relationship, considering both assessment and simulation approaches [4] . According to the IEA EBC Annex 53 "Total energy use in buildings: Analysis and evaluation methods", there are six main influencing factors regarding energy use in buildings: climate, building envelope, building services and energy systems, building operation and maintenance, occupant activity and behavior, and indoor environmental quality [5] . According to the authors, physical and technical factors provide a background to estimate building performance, while human-influenced factors lead to the actual energy use. On this basis, one may argue that unoccupied buildings tend to present low energy use levels. However, there is evidence for both commercial [6] and residential buildings [7] that a relatively high amount of energy may be used when spaces are unoccupied. Focusing on office spaces, Masoso and Grobler [6] found in a case study that around 56% of the energy was used during nonworking hours, partly due to lights and equipment being left on at the end of the day.

Studying the actual energy performance of buildings is a constant concern, especially due to the evident energy performance gap reported in the literature: the difference between predicted and measured energy performance of buildings [8] . Occupancy in buildings already proved to be the main cause for uncertainties regarding the energy performance of buildings [9] opening a lack for research of actual energy performance of buildings [10, 11] . Optimizing such energy use in buildings is also denoted as a key aspect to boost the economic and environmental indices regarding the energy sector worldwide [12, 13] . Along building design, operation and maintenance. In fact, other concerns evidenced by the COVID-19 crisis like occupants' safety during occupation may lead to increased energy use due to higher ventilation rates required [14] . If the building stock is wasting energy during unoccupied hours, such worry should be put in a paramount position to guide building design and operation. The literature supports that policymakers, planners, and architects should think out of the box to achieve antivirus-built environment [15] , but energy efficiency concerns as well as CO2 emissions cannot be disregarded.

In this panorama, the objective of this paper is to assess the impact of the lockdown imposed to deal with the COVID-19 emergency on the electric energy use of municipal buildings in Florianópolis, Brazil. The motivation was to comprehend current user-related conditions of municipal buildings that were limited during this pandemic. Aiming to provide valid, representative, and J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f generalizable results for pre-and post-pandemic scenarios, this study is based on recommendations provided by Fell et al. [16] . We took the proposed "core and consider" approach to account for the influence of the pandemic on research validity. Our "core variables" are the government restrictions imposed on the city, as well as objective measurement of the electric energy consumption of municipal buildings that were directly influenced by changes in daily routine caused by the restrictions. Other "considered" variables herein encompass a general profile of the municipality electric energy use, adopting a broader scope where spaces other than buildings were included.

The main contribution of this study is the comprehensive analysis of the impact of the lockdown measures to contain COVID-19 spread in public buildings. Specifically, the monthly electric energy use intensity of the buildings during the pandemic was compared with the same period in previous years.

The aim was to explore how the building electric energy consumption is responding to the unprecedented situation of an almost complete lack of occupancy. Connections between an energy use reduction and building features were explored, and semi-structured interviews were performed with key people in the municipality, to clarify some questions regarding the operation of buildings during this period. Finally, individual buildings were analyzed using energy audits in order to qualify, assess and understand the basal energy consumption of these buildings.

Florianópolis is located in southern Brazil and has a humid subtropical climate (classified as Cfa according to Köppen-Geiger system). Florianópolis is classified as climatic zone A2 according to the ANSI/ASHARE Standard 169-2013 [17] . It is considered a medium-sized city in Brazil, with a population of 477,798 in 2016 and a Gross Domestic Product of US$ 6.9 billion in February 2015 [18] . The Human Development Index (HDI) is 0.847 [19] . Cities also point out public lighting as a major energy consumer for their municipalities. This result evidences the need to comprehensively assess this contribution and provide guidelines to increase the energy efficiency of these municipal systems. Although worthy of investigation, this topic lies outside the scope of the present study because energy use by systems was not directly affected by the lockdown measures adopted in Florianópolis. Considering the other categories, services may be affected by social-distancing measures; however, they represented less than 1% of the total energy consumption managed by the municipal administration. J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f It is possible to observe a slight difference in energy consumption during the lockdown period in both the systems and services sectors. However, this analysis focused on municipal buildings, exclusively, as they accounted for around 15% of the total energy use and were directly affected by the lockdown and work-from-home policies. Administrative buildings, elementary and nursery schools, and health centers are the typologies that have the most significant impact on the total energy consumption of municipal buildings (around 85%).

Thus, all subsequent analysis was conducted considering these four typologies.

In fact, social assistance buildings and community centers play a social role by acting in supporting the community in which they are located, serving as hosts for decision-making meetings or reference points for food distribution, among other social functions. These buildings were therefore excluded from the analysis as they present an unusual occupation during the pandemic.

The pandemic reached Florianópolis on 22 February 2020, when the first COVID-19 cases were confirmed [21] . At this time, many actions were taken to avoid the spread of the virus and manage the effects of the pandemic. In order to provide a clear perspective of the actions taken and explain the timeframes chosen for the analysis, we organized these actions into a timeline, as shown in 

The dataset was gathered by the Efficient Cities project mentioned above, a partnership between the Municipal Administration of Florianópolis and CBCS with the collaboration of LabEEE. One objective of this project was to establish a standard framework to manage energy and water data related to the municipal buildings for 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Data on a portfolio of 289 municipal buildings was available, as detailed in Table 2 , which formed the basis of this study. 

where:

V is the variation in the energy consumption during the lockdown period, in %;

E2020 is the energy consumption from March to July of 2020 (lockdown period), in kWh;

E2019 is the energy consumption from March to July of 2019, in kWh;

E2018 is the energy consumption from March to July of 2018, in kWh;

n is the number of buildings of a given typology;

i represents the months, starting from March (1) to July (5).

A building stock-level approach is used to analyze various aspects of a group of buildings [11] . In this study, the results were expressed in boxplots and tables to present the statistic measures for each typology studied.

Based on the analysis of the data available for the portfolio of municipal buildings, a remaining energy consumption was identified even though the buildings were supposed to be unoperated, regarding the official orientation.

This was unexpected since the buildings were not operating; the energy consumption should be zero; however, this was not what happened in practice.

In addition, it is reasonable to state that the remaining energy consumption is unnoticeable in regular operation but become evident in cases of restrict operation, such as during the first lockdown due to the pandemic.

Based on a similar idea related to a human body, of a basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is the minimum energy required to keep this organism functioning at rest [28, 29] , we proposed the term "basal energy use intensity"

(basal EUI), that is, the minimum energy needed to maintain the building operating at minimal conditions. It is important to explain that these minimal conditions are different than inactivated buildings: buildings that are inactivated are not being used anymore, and their energy consumptions will be zero, while minimal conditions imply that buildings are no operating during a short or uncertain period, and must be ready to operate anytime.

In order to measure this basal EUI, Equation 2 was used to calculate the simple average EUI for the target building during the months of complete lockdown (sum of EUI's divided by the number of months). Still, an interval of confidence was calculated for this period, to consider variations. The Interval of confidence is considered by adding and subtracting the average basal EUI a part calculated by quotient between the standard deviation of the EUI, the root squared number of months and multiplying by the statistic "t" from the Student ttest, in this case, considered with a significance level of 10% (90% of confidence).

where:

B is the basal EUI of the target building, in kWh/m²; µ is the monthly EUI of the target building, in kWh/m²; m is the number of lockdown months that affected the target building;

t90% is the statistic "t" from the Student t-test with a significance level of 10%;

 is the standard deviation of the EUI during the lockdown months that affected the target building, in kWh/m²; J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f i represents the months, starting from March (1) to July (5) .

Hypothetically, many factors could account for this basal EUI; e.g., stand- In summary, the power of each piece of equipment identified was multiplied by an estimated number of hours of usage, known as the use factor. Lastly, the energy consumption of refrigerators was measured using a specific energy meter.

With regard to the impact of lockdown on the energy use of municipal buildings, substantial variations were found during the period of analysis. As shown in Figure 3 , all categories of buildings showed a reduction in energy use during these months.

The decrease in energy use at health centers may initially seem inconsistent with a period in which these facilities are expected to be overused.

However, the Florianopolis administration encouraged people to use a telemedicine service instead of visiting clinics to reduce the risk of contagion [33] . Also, small health centers were not directly responsible for attending Key descriptive statistics were calculated considering the variations in energy use between 2020 and the historical average, to provide a deeper understanding of the trends. Importantly, the interval considered for this analysis was April to July. The variations in energy consumption can be seen in Table 3 , and Figure 4 shows a summary for each typology in a boxplot.

Reductions are expressed as negative values and increases as positive values. It is important to highlight that the mean variation is always negative (reduction), and it was possible to determine a confidence interval considering the standard deviation and the size of the building stock for each typology. In other words, this outcome explains how much the energy consumption decreased due to lockdown measures in the case analyzed, according to different typologies.

The maximum change in energy consumption observed was 100%, which means that some buildings presented zero energy consumption, probably due to the deactivation of the power supply. On the other hand, for all typologies, some buildings showed an increase in energy consumption (maximum positive values) and these should be investigated in further analysis.

Results evidenced expressive reductions in some municipal buildings caused by the lockdown, but it also revealed that many facilities consumed a high amount of electricity with occupancy reduced. Therefore, a path towards understanding this scenario is needed to guide future decision making related to energy efficiency in buildings. According to Steffen et al. [37] , energy and climate policies need to encompass criteria to deal with new circumstances arising during the COVID-19 crisis. The authors note that although reductions in energy consumption and CO2 emissions have been observed throughout the world during the short-term response to this crisis, long-term scenarios will be J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f highly dependent on whether structural changes are introduced in the sector.

Considering a potential perspective for the post-crisis scenario, Kuzemko et al. [38] emphasized that the path to economic recovery presents an opportunity to stimulate green growth. In other words, policy interventions may accelerate the decarbonization of energy systems as well as enhance the requirements related to energy efficiency and the indoor quality of built environments.

Evaluations in one building of each category were conducted to understand the possible causes of the high basal energy consumption during the unoccupied period. A combination of ASHRAE Energy Audit level 2 and semi-structured interviews were the methods used to obtain more information. Table 4 contextualizes each building evaluated and shows the observed reduction of energy use during the lockdown. building [39] .

Regarding the elementary school evaluated, much of the consumption observed was attributed to refrigerators and stand-by plug loads. Lighting for J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f safety was also identified, especially in the external areas. Sporadic visits from staff members were reported, especially for cleaning purposes toward the end of lockdown. Similar results were observed for the nursery school visited. Table   5 provides the estimated breakdown of the basal EUI for each building audited, using the TM22 method. J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f For the city of Florianópolis, the average breakdown of the energy consumption for a school with air conditioning is: 30% for air conditioning; 48%

for lighting and 21% for plug-loads (mainly refrigerators and computers) [40] .

However, it is important to highlight that air conditioning is not often present in these buildings -In fact, only 25% of the elementary and nursery schools have the system in the classrooms [20] . The breakdown for a school without air conditioning in Florianópolis is: 69% for lighting and 31% for plug loads (refrigerators and computers) [40] .

It is important to highlight that a significant portion of this basal EUI could be reduced, especially by avoiding unnecessary stand-by plug loads, such as computers. The reduction could reach around 22% (0.37 kWh/m².month) for the administrative building, 38% (0.23 kWh/m².month) for the elementary school and 33% (0.36 kWh/m².month) for the nursery school. Also, empty refrigerators could be turned off, notably at the nursery school evaluated, since this system had the highest share of basal energy use.

Another important aspect is related to high-demand contracts. Higher consumption clients (such as the SMDU building) have a contract known as 'energy on demand': the municipality has an annual contract with a fixed energy demand per month and pays the energy consumption bill monthly. If the building uses more energy than this fixed value, a higher amount is charged for J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f the extra energy demand. If the building uses less energy than the contract value, the agreed amount is charged. During this pandemic period, the SMDU building, for example, had a lower energy demand (average 35.5 kW) than the amount fixed on the contract (70 kW), and the municipality is paying for this unused demand. The context of this research represents an unpredictable situation, with the building being unoccupied for a long period. However, knowing the basal EUI and taking measures to decrease it could allow the municipality to adjust its energy contracts and save resources in the long term.

As a consequence, lessons learned during this challenging period can be implemented in post-pandemic scenarios and help to decarbonize the public building stock in Florianópolis.

According to Bashir et al. [41] , socio-economic and environmental impacts resulted from the measures taken to deal with the COVID-19

emergency. The world is observing severe demographic changes, high unemployment rates, and reductions in economic activities. Energy-related research is also highlighting many aspects including reductions in total energy consumption [2, 3] , CO2 emissions [42, 43] , and other air pollution indicators [44] [45] [46] worldwide. However, Bashir et al. [41] also noted that COVID-19 should not be considered as a driver for these positive variations, especially considering that the environmental changes and reductions on pollution levels will not be long lasting. Nevertheless, the availability of previously unseen patterns allows the assessment of specific aspects that must be studied and improved in the future. Magahed and Ghoneim argued that responses to this crisis might shape the design of antivirus-built environments relying on multidisciplinary efforts [15] .

Evidence supports that climate conditions may boost coronavirus spread, and such information may provide guidelines for building design. In fact, lowhumidity areas imply in higher mass transfer potential, which may dry and reduce the size of respiratory dropletsincreasing their spread [47] . However, the literature also supports that both built and social environments influenced the dissemination of COVID-19 in Washington D.C., USA [48] .

In a current perspective, measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19, like adopting lockdown and work-from-home policies, showed that authorities can respond quickly to evident threats. However, other notable issues, like climate change, seem to be somewhat disregarded by building stakeholders [49] . Along these lines, the literature evidences a two-fold relationship between climate change and the building sector. Firstly, buildings are responsible for a high portion of energy use worldwide [50] with a direct impact on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change [2] . Secondly, climate change itself is expected to increase the energy demand of buildings [51] [52] [53] . Additionally, as argued by Mohammed et al. [14] COVID-19 also evidenced some needs in further design and operation of buildings. For instance, authors argued that higher ventilations rates will be necessary, which increases the energy use in buildings.

Reports in the literature highlight that increasing energy efficiency is an important strategy to prevent a rebound effect on carbon emissions in a post-COVID scenario [54] . Therefore, implementing energy-efficiency strategies in buildings in Florianópolis' is vital, since our results indicate that most municipal facilities had high levels of energy use during lockdown. These values may be considered as a basal amount of energy consumed regardless of the presence of occupants, that is, the basal energy use intensity (BEUI).

In the case of Florianópolis, the monthly average energy use of municipal buildings from April to July ranged from 49.6% to 61.4% of the historical average, which is a large portion considering the abnormal lack of occupancy.

Similar outcomes were presented for University buildings in the UK, where 46.6% electricity reduction was found comparing energy use previous and during the lockdown [55] . Other countries report different reductions. In Italy, reductions in electric energy consumption were around 37 % [57] , compared to the same period last year. In Spain, office buildings reported a reduction of 14.53 % during workdays and 10.62% in weekends [58] . In China, the estimated carbon reduction was 23.9% for constructions than in the same period in the past year [59] . The building stock responds differently along with the country realitynot only according to the building practices but, in this case, also according to the actions took to deal with the pandemic situation. In fact, J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f the energy performance of buildings is largely affected by the cultural and social aspects [60] .

An unintended consequence of the lockdown is that it allowed the baseline scenario to be evidenced, revealing that buildings remained with some systems turned on as if they were occupied. As stated by the building coordinators in Florianópolis, in several cases this was due to uncertainties Performance Certificates are still optional, expect for federal buildings. An indepth knowledge of these aspects, along with understanding and rating the building performance throughout its operation, is also fundamental. As discussed by Yoshino et al. [5] , a lack of knowledge regarding the primary factors that influence building energy use is a substantial barrier to improving energy efficiency. In this regard, our results verify that a significant portion of the building energy consumption is related to the presence of the occupant, such as air conditioning, lighting and plug loads. In the context analyzed in this paper, it was possible to quantify a portion of energy that could be saved with strategies to reduce the total energy consumption of a building. In the administrative building analyzed, for example, adopting work-from-home policies in the postpandemic scenario could reduce the SMDU's energy consumption by up to 40 .5%, considering zero occupancy for one month. On this basis, scenarios could be tested to specify and outline such a policy. In fact, the records of energy consumption of Florianópolis obtained from the electric utility [61] reported an increasing in electric energy consumption in residential sector but an expressive reduction in commercial sector. Comparing the total electric energy consumption from March to July of 2020 with the same period of 2019, the residential sector had an increasing of 4.4% (around 8,806.83 MWh), while the commercial sector had a reduction of around 19% (26,237.05 MWh). If such a trend is maintained in the so-called "new normal", further energy efficiency measures for the residential sector will be discussed and presented. Therefore, policymakers are recommended to carefully evaluate underlying effects on the energy use of residential buildings [62] , as well as possible rebound effects when energy efficiency measures are adopted [63] .

Finally, another aim of this study was to present to the building community meaningful information that may encourage changes considering both the mid-and long-term horizons. In this context, Fell et al. [16] presented a general overview of good practices regarding the validity of energy-social research during and after the COVID-19 emergency. The authors stressed that conclusions drawn from data collected during this period should be valid, representative and generalizable to a post-pandemic world, as well as comparable to the pre-pandemic scenario. Indeed, these aspects are key to extracting lessons from this situation and implementing good practices in this field. Considering the energy consumption of municipal buildings in Florianópolis, the unprecedented lockdown evidenced that many buildings may be wasting energy throughout the year, and this trend is generalizable to both pre-and post-pandemic scenarios. Additionally, this study reinforces the need for a workgroup formed of municipal administration staff that would be responsible for measuring the building performance of their portfolio and propose energy efficiency actions. This study represents a first step to understanding the performance of these patterns and identifying the reasons for their occurrence. Further research will focus on performing a comprehensive energy consumption breakdown for the buildings in the portfolio of the municipality.

This study focused on the short-term influence of the lockdown undertaken to deal with COVID-19 emergency on the energy use of municipality buildings in Florianópolis, Brazil. The main conclusion was that buildings consumed an expressive amount of energy during this period. Also, an expressive scientific outcome could be drawn from this study: buildings present a remaining energy consumption that is unnoticeable in regular operation, but become evident in cases of restrict operation, such as during the first lockdown due to the pandemic. We found that this remaining energy consumption exists because of a sum of vital loads and/or stand-by loads (that were kept in this way for the eminent return of the operation  Energy audits were performed on a sample of buildings to identify the source of this basal EUI. Stand-by loads and vital loads (such as lighting for safety and server rooms) were identified as the main contributors. Thus, the basal EUI could be reduced with behavioral changes and more efficient systems being installed.

These outcomes support the need for making energy-related policies stricter, to reduce the basal energy use intensity. Considering mid-term and long-term horizons might help us to understand several challenges associated with building operation, considering all of the changes that this pandemic period has brought to our society.

Declarations of interest none.

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This study was supported by the Brazilian governmental agencies CAPES ("Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior") -Finance Code 001, and CNPq ("Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico").The authors would like to thank the municipal administration of the city of Florianópolis that kindly contributed with essential information for the carrying out of this research. The data used in this study was made available by the