Daylight Saving?

Daylight Saving Wastes Energy, Study Says

Indiana's change of heart gave University of California-Santa Barbara economics professor Matthew Kotchen and Ph.D. student Laura Grant a unique way to see how the time shift affects energy use. Using more than seven million monthly meter readings from Duke Energy Corp., covering nearly all the households in southern Indiana for three years, they were able to compare energy consumption before and after counties began observing daylight-saving time. Readings from counties that had already adopted daylight-saving time provided a control group that helped them to adjust for changes in weather from one year to the next.

Report Reveals Daylight Saving “Saves” Energy

The “heuristic” method compared the average changes in the pattern of electricity consumption between 2006 and 2007 during the periods of extended daylight saving time in March and November. The statistical method examined daily and hourly electricity consumption for a sample of electric utilities across the country.