Giving Compass' Take:

• COVID-19 has brought new challenges to individuals, including an increase in the remote workforce, which has implications for cloud computing systems and energy efficiency. 

• In what ways will there need to be innovation in energy efficiency as COVID-19 continues? How can donors help bolster initiatives that provide support for those working from home or those that need internet access? 

• Learn how COVID-19 is impacting the cleantech sector.

The electricity consumption profile of companies around the world has been altered profoundly over the past month, as countries have adopted "shelter in place" measures to slow or at least control the spread of the coronavirus, corporate offices have shuttered and industrial production sharply curtailed.

One obvious exception: the world’s data centers and internet infrastructure, which are experiencing an unprecedented spike in usage.

Just one example: As homes have become places of both business and education, the use of videoconferencing and collaboration services has skyrocketed.

Research suggests that the average daily usage of the Zoom application is up more than 300 percent since December (although that was before the backlash about its security in early April). Meanwhile, Microsoft is reporting a massive uptick in adoption of its Teams application — with 44 million people using the application as of March 28, up 12 million from the week before.

The good news is many of the biggest cloud computing and data center providers have continued to focus on improving energy efficiency alongside their investments in sourcing renewable energy. This is a story I’ve been reporting on since February, but it has become even more relevant in the past few weeks.

How much more efficient? Research released in late February by researchers at Northwestern University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Koomey Analytics found that total global data center energy consumption grew 6 percent between 2010 and 2018, even though the number of "compute instances" grew by 6.5 times during that same timeframe.

Put another way: That’s a modest increase, considering there was a 26-fold increase in data storage capacity, an 11-fold rise in data center IP traffic — and the number of physical computer servers was up 30 percent. Specifically, the sector consumed about 205 terawatt-hours in 2018, which represents about 1 percent of global electricity usage — about the same as back in 2010.

Read the full article about energy efficiency during COVID-19 by Heather Clancy at GreenBiz.