CH-24-C074 - Quantifying the Impact of Teleworking on Home and Office Energy Use: A Case Study in Ontario, Canada

The energy-related impacts of teleworking and its associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mostly impact the four domains of transportation, offices, homes, and information and communications technology (ICT). However, offices and homes are two highly interconnected domains since switching from a traditional office is associated with working from home or being at home more. Furthermore, many employers are switching to hybrid working models to provide employees with more comfort and increase their productivity. Therefore, this study aims to quantify the energy impact of telework on homes and offices by simulating occupancy levels and corresponding energy use and GHG emissions in offices and homes. A reference medium office building is simulated with occupancy levels from 0% to 100% with 20% intervals. The reference office building is occupied with smart technologies such as occupancy-based lighting and smart plugs as per recommendations of an earlier research. As the next step, the energy use of the office building and its associated GHG emissions are documented for each occupancy level scenario. On the home side, a two-story single detached home is simulated with one teleworker (always occupied) and without a teleworker (regular occupancy). Based on the teleworking levels (% teleworking), each occupant in the office is associated with a home that follows either a regular occupancy (non-teleworking) or always occupied scenario (teleworking). The total building energy use and emissions for the different working models are reported and compared to quantify the impact of telework on the overall energy use of teleworkers and their carbon footprint in offices and homes. The results indicate that energy use decreased in offices by teleworking (≈ 3% to 5%) whereas homes had an increase in energy use (≈ 6%). The findings expand the current literature by quantifying the impacts of the two interconnected domains on each other.