Does daylight savings actually save energy?
In 1784, Benjamin Franklin jokingly suggested that Parisians could if they started their days when the sun came up.
As timekeeping became more precise, the concept of Daylight Savings Time moved from satire to reality. Conceived of independently in many nations around the turn of the 20th century, the most frequently stated aim of DST is to conserve electricity by allowing workers to return home to sunlight-filled homes.聽Beginning with Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1916,聽聽observe some form of DST within their borders today.
But does DST really save energy? The results are mixed.
According to the聽US Energy Information Administration's ","聽residential energy consumption accounted for close to 40 percent of American energy use in 2012. But reports show that, through readjusting to the time change, Americans and others who adopt daylight savings tend to negate any possible energy savings on the back end at night after work by waking up early, according to who has covered energy related topics for numerous national publications such as National Geographic and the New York Times.
Mr. Zeller cites a report published jointly by Precision聽Health聽Economics of San Francisco and the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota聽in November, using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' , which this shift in energy聽consumption relative to peoples' schedules and how they spend their waking hours. While the results varied widely by geography and weather,聽researchers concluded, in essence, that, during its initial weeks DST tends to prompt an increase in energy use in the colder, darker mornings of the early spring, one that is not entirely offset by the evening sunshine.
As part of the , Congress moved the beginning of DST in the United States to the聽second Sunday of March from the聽first Sunday of April, and the end to the first Sunday in November instead of the last Sunday of October. The changes went into effect in 2007. According to a report submitted to Congress by the Department of Energy the following year, the changes saved about聽, or聽聽of the national electricity consumption over the course of a year, according to Forbes.
Before Energy Policy Act went into effect, Indiana let each county choose if they wanted to participate in daylight savings. A 2008 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research聽, and the聽researchers found that DST had prompted a one-percent increase in energy consumption.
The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), located in Bonn, Germany聽launched a study in 2008 . Victoria had launched extended DST as part of its 2000 Sydney Olympics campaign. The results showed that extended daylight savings in Victoria did drive down energy consumption in the evening, but聽caused an equal spike in energy consumption in the morning. 聽
