Daylight Savings Time doesn't save energy

Hi there, it’s Friday, 8th of November, and you’re listening to WindFront, the weekly roundup of the Wind Industry from Australia and around the world. Today I’m going to be talking about daylight savings time. And the fact that it doesn’t really save any energy at all. And, of course, I’ll cover the weekly top 3 earners.

So we have a look at Daylight Savings Time, a recent article in National Geographic. It says that daylight savings proponents claim that it saves energy and so is good for the environment. And the theory is that our day has more daylight hours, and we use less lighting load, and we get out of the house more to enjoy the outdoors. So potentially, because we’re using less lighting load and we’re getting out of the house and enjoying the outdoors, consumption would be down. But it isn’t true. A 2008 National Bureau of Economic Research Study found that if anything, usage slightly increased due to the additional hour of air conditioning load, and an additional hour of driving increases environmental impacts there too.

So while these studies were done in America, I thought I’d have a look at Australia. I wanted to observe the effects of daylight savings time for myself. We have the situation where Queensland does not observe daylight savings time, while the other eastern states do. So I compared the energy demand for the week before and after the daylight savings time introduction, in both 2012 and 2013. And what I found was shocking. There is no appreciable difference in demand levels before and after. Sometimes demand went up, in other states it went down, and the same is true of Queensland, where no daylight savings change occurred at all. If there was any difference, it’s been lost in the noise.

So the debate in Queensland has some recency, since it has a relatively constant political issue. The southeastern corner of Queensland supporting such a change while the north and western parts are weakly opposing. The Daylight Savings Time political party, which was formed, it promotes commercial and lifestyle benefits, and only makes a vague reference to potential energy savings. So it seems that the original energy saving benefits which are rooted in the 1st World War era have given way to more social and commercial benefits, which perhaps means that daylight savings is here to stay.

Let’s have a look at the top 3 in wind, no surprises this week. Macarthur on top, followed by North Brown Hill and Waubra. Though the week was a lot lower. Macarthur failing to even get more than $1 million. Only $600,000, almost $700,000, well, North Brown Hill, half that again.

So until I see you next week, keep buying those green electrons.