Connectivity and Comfort — WFH with Hygge

With the spread of COVID-19 largely confining most of us to our homes, our electrical needs and vulnerabilities have dramatically changed.  

Whether you’re working from home (WFH) or your kiddos are engaged in remote learning, the pandemic has shifted energy use patterns away from commercial buildings and schools and toward residences. States from California to New York are seeing rising residential energy use as energy consumption patterns shift to meet the reality of the “new normal.” And along with shifting energy consumption patterns comes different energy requirements and emerging vulnerabilities. 

Home office. Comfortable by OPO.

New Energy Needs and Risks to the Grid

As millions of Americans continue to work or attend school from the comfort of their homes, people are spending an inordinate amount of time at home, which significantly increases electricity consumption. 

From running powerful laptops eight hours a day and keeping the heat or A/C on to ensure comfort throughout the day to constantly having the lights on and keeping everything plugged in, we’re all using more energy at home than ever — and the pandemic has highlighted the importance of connectivity and comfort to our daily lifestyles.

Meetings and gatherings with friends and family have moved to Zoom and other virtual platforms, e-commerce has ramped up, telemedicine consultations and care have become routine and remaining comfortable has taken on increased importance this year. And many of these trends are likely to continue well after vaccines and therapeutics are made widely available.

Plus, as people grow tired of their own homes, some are turning to short-term rental properties outside of urban areas for a respite from the monotony of pandemic life. Many pandemic-weary travelers have sought socially distanced trips to private properties within just a few hours’ drive from home, where they can work from anywhere, make their own meals and avoid contact with strangers from outside their quarantine bubble, whether inside or enjoying the great outdoors. But the remote nature of many of these rental properties can make constant connectivity a challenge. 

Unfortunately, vacation rental properties and our own homes are not set up to manage the electrical grid’s vulnerabilities as well as commercial and industrial buildings or schools are because powering numerous homes requires more energy than powering single office buildings. While many commercial buildings and schools likely have backup generators or battery systems in case of interrupted supplies from the grid, most consumers do not have simple-to-use, reliable backup power options at their disposal. 

That’s where Hygge Power comes in.

How Hygge Power Helps

With our OPO family of plug-and-play, multifunctional energy devices and CO-Z mobile app, we put power in the hands of the people. 

Not only do our smart energy systems deliver seamless power, emergency storage and reliable protection when it matters, they also redefine what it means to be energy efficient. From voice assistants, security cameras and Wi-Firouters to entertainment systems, computers and refrigerators, OPO Plug and OPO Hub keep you connected and comfortable by providing seamless power that keeps your electronics and certain appliances running withoutinterruption. Even better, the power of OPO empowers you to avoid the impact of an outage with reliable protection against surges, which are common in outages and can damage appliances. Best of all, you’re able to manage your energy and optimize usage from any smart device with our mobile app.

Usable with or without our energy storage hardware, the CO-Z app delivers outage and price alerts that empower you to take control of your energy experience. With CO-Z, you can be notified before an outage occurs so that you can plan and prepare to keep all your devices charged and ready to operate. Let’s say you’re in the middle of an important sales call on Zoom and you get an alert of a bad storm. Is this really the right time to lose connectivity? With CO-Z, you’ll know ahead of time so you can ensure your computer is charged and your hotspot is ready to go. Additionally, the app recommends actions aimed at reducing costs and assisting sustainability by communicating when renewable power is available, allowing you to tailor your actions and use the cleanest energy possible.

While the pandemic created immediate and varied impacts on energy use, revealing different needs and emerging vulnerabilities, solutions are available. Whatever your priority — be it connectivity or comfort — Hygge Power understands what’s truly important to your lifestyle and has created smart solutions that meet your needs and protect you from grid vulnerabilities by putting the power right where it belongs — in your hands.