Increased Interest in Electronics

With millions more people staying at home during the day due to COVID-19 restrictions, electricity usage and interest in electronic products is soaring to new heights. A new report shows just how many more people are searching for popular electronics during the pandemic lockdowns.

According to a report from the International Energy Agency utilizing the search volume index of Google Trends, searches for popular electronics like computers and TVs are up by double-digits from the previous year. In June of 2019, the search volume index score for TVs was just 46, compared to 60 in 2020. The index score was also up for searches involving personal computers, going from 68 in 2019 to 88 in June of 2020. Microwaves and blenders were also noticeably higher this year as opposed to last year.

The report goes on to show how energy efficiency is becoming increasingly important with people using more and more electronic appliances for longer periods of time. The trend for appliance intensity (measured by gigajoules per household) has gone up in the past two decades for some of the world’s largest countries, including the U.S., which rose by 13 percent from 2000 to 2018. Japan and the U.K. were some of the largest countries that had significant decreases in appliance intensity, going down 20 percent and 25 percent, respectively, in that same time period.