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Estimated Impact of COVID-19 Restrictions on California Water Consumption

October 25, 2022

Previous blogs and memos looked at the estimated impact of COVID-19 restrictions on the consumption of electricity. At a high level, it was found that the restrictions led to increased residential class power consumption and not completely offsetting decreased non-residential class power consumption. This outcome was not wholly unexpected since early in the battle against the spread of the COVID-19 virus most restrictions led to shuttering of businesses forcing most of the workforce to either work from home or go without work.

We recently performed some new analysis to determine if there was a similar impact on water consumption. In particular, the focus is on water consumption in California which is suffering through a severe drought. In response to the drought, California’s Governor Newsom issued an Executive Order in July 2022 calling on Californians to voluntarily reduce their water use by 15 percent compared to 2020 levels. The 15% target is estimated to reduce California’s urban (i.e., residential, commercial and industrial) water usage by about 277 billion gallons.

Read a new white paper that addresses the question: if COVID-19 restrictions led to a net increase in water consumption, then what would be the net impact of the voluntary restrictions? Does 15% return California urban water usage to more, about the same, or less than pre-pandemic levels?

By Dr. Frank A. Monforte

Director of Forecasting Solutions

Dr. Frank A. Monforte is Director of Forecasting Solutions at Itron, where he is an internationally recognized authority in the areas of real-time load and generation forecasting, retail portfolio forecasting, and long-term energy forecasting. Dr. Monforte’s real-time forecasting expertise includes authoring the load forecasting models used to support real-time system operations for the North American system operators, the California ISO, the New York ISO, the Midwest ISO, ERCOT, the IESO, and the Australian system operators AEMO and Western Power. Recent efforts include authoring embedded solar, solar plant, and wind farm generation forecast models used to support real-time operations at the California ISO. Dr. Monforte founded the annual ISO/TSO Forecasting Summit that brings together ISO/TSO forecasters from around the world to discuss forecasting challenges unique to their organizations. He directs the implementation of Itron’s Retail Forecasting System, including efforts for energy retailers operating in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, France, Belgium, Italy, Australia, and the U.S. These systems produce energy forecasts for retail portfolios of interval metered and non-interval metered customers. The forecast models he has developed support forecasting of power, gas and heat demand and forecasting of wind, solar, landfill gas, and mine gas generation. Dr. Monforte presides over the annual Itron European Energy Forecasting Group meeting that brings together European Energy Forecasters for an open exchange of ideas and solutions. Dr. Monforte directed the development of Itron’s Statistically Adjusted End-Use Forecasting model and supporting data. He founded the Energy Forecasting Group, which directs primary research in the area of long-run end-use forecasting. Recent efforts include designing economic indices that provide long-run forecast stability during periods of economic uncertainty. Email Frank at frank.monforte@itron.com, or click here to connect on LinkedIn.