From a New York Times op-ed:
Recently, however, we were able to conduct a study in Indiana, where daylight time was instituted statewide only in 2006. […]
We found that daylight time caused a 1 percent overall increase in residential electricity use, though the effect varied from month to month. The greatest increase occurred in late summer and early fall, when electricity use rose by 2 percent to 4 percent.
Daylight time costs Indiana households an average of $3.29 a year in higher electricity bills, or about $9 million for the whole state. We also calculated the health and other social costs of increased pollution emissions at $1.7 million to $5.5 million per year.
What explains this unexpected result? While daylight time reduces demand for household lighting, it increases demand for heating in the early spring and late fall (in the mornings) and, even more important, for cooling on summer evenings. Benjamin Franklin was right about candles, in other words, but he did not consider air-conditioners.
And of course, it’s been in the past couple of years that we’ve extended DST to take greater advantage of the perceived “savings”.
In fairness to DST proponents, I wonder if there is some measurable benefit to society from having sunset occurring at a time perceived to be “later”, due to increased outdoor activity, etc. But, perhaps it’s time to kill the myth that “DST saves energy”?
I don’t mind daylight saving time, mind you; I do like having an extra hour of daylight after my official work hours in spring, summer, and fall. I like it enough that, if we abolished DST, I’d likely adjust my official work hours to take advantage of the situation.
My beef is with changing between Standard and Daylight time; I wish we’d pick one and stick with it. If folks are really concerned about “children waiting for busses in the dark” or truly value the “extra” hour of daylight, schedules will be adjusted, without need of the silliness of the time changes.
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