So Much For Conventional Wisdom About Daylight Savings Time?

USA Today has an interesting report today, which notes a study of energy usage of homes in Indiana. The study compared power usage in homes located in counties that formerly did not utilize daylight savings time and then switched over two years ago. Indiana was a relic of the past as the state was split roughly in half and some counties maintained daylight savings time while other counties did not utilize the practice.

The researchers actually thought that it might be a good idea to study whether daylight savings actually produced the energy savings alleged by proponents.

The point of the study was to actually evaluate whether it does in fact save energy because there has been surprisingly little research that has looked into that question.

What were the results?

We found based on the natural experiment in Indiana that contrary to the conventional wisdom, daylight saving time ... decreases consumption for artificial illumination but increases consumption for heating and cooling.

The magnitude of our estimate (for increased usage) ranged between 1% and 4%.

In the study, what was the cost of daylight saving time?

The change in costs to Indiana residents in terms of increased electricity demand ... is just over $3 per household per year. Over the whole population, that comes out to $8.6 million a year.

Another element ... is the social (and economic) cost of pollution emissions. Having to generate more energy for electricity means there is going to be more pollution.

We estimate those costs are between $1.6 million and $5.3 million per year in increased pollution costs.

Do the results apply to the whole nation?

Based on places that have similar sunrise and sunset times and climate of Indiana, the same results might apply.

But while this is the effect in Indiana, and we suspect that it is in a lot of other places ... there may be places where daylight saving time actually does save energy.

So, instead of reducing energy usage, it actually resulted in a net increase in Indiana.

I'd say that this warrants further examination.

Daylight savings time comes early - time to spring ahead one hour overnight.