Think you used more electricity working from home during the pandemic? Check your bill.
Many Horry County residents have spent the last five months at home doing their part to help slow coronavirus’ spread. Of course, that has led to people using home electronics and running the AC more, right?
It turns out, we all powered down.
Data provided by Santee Cooper shows residential energy sales are down in three South Carolina counties compared with last year. The analysts caught many off guard assuming usage would be up as school children moved to virtual school and many adults worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In April, usage was down in residential sales by about 19.3 percent, in May it was down 10.7 percent and June it was down 11. 2 percent. The data is for Horry, Georgetown and Berkeley counties.
Santee Cooper has about 158,000 customers in Horry County.
Several factors likely contributed to the drop in usage, spokeswoman Tracy Vreeland said. One is the state had a milder spring where people were not running their air conditioner as much as last year. Another factor could have been the work from home order leading to fewer people renting their summer homes.
With the triple-digit heat indexes this week, Vreeland customers might see a jump in their bills next month.
Local air conditioning repair businesses say they haven’t noticed much of a change in business during the pandemic, but that is starting to change with the warmer temps.
“Business is about the same,” said Danny Fields, with Danny’s Heating & Air in Horry and Georgetown counties.
Call volume hasn’t jumped with more people staying home, Field said. He also said they didn’t have an issue with people concerned about employees coming into their homes and potentially spreading the virus.
Christy Crain, office manager with Jake’s Heating and Cooling in North Myrtle Beach, said they haven’t seen a change in business during the pandemic. Though, she noted there has been more calls with the hot temperatures in the last week.
About a third of customers didn’t want their annual spring check-up because of concerns of an employee possibly bringing coronavirus to their home. Others welcomed the technicians as the customers as they were already at home all day.
“As long as we’re we suited up, they wanted us to come out because they were home,” Crain said.
This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 12:53 PM.
